12:50 – MatsExtrude
Thanks! 👍
The Russian losses fluctuate a bit and have increased for a couple of days now. I’m not entirely sure they have reached the low point yet.
They may continue to bash themselves bloody for a while longer, and in the worst case, they will keep going until March for Putin to achieve something before the election. The most important thing is anyway that AFU is ready when the Russians finally get deflated.
Hope of course it will be soon; otherwise, it might take a while, so we get a new spring offensive in April or May depending on the weather. I don’t think that’s so bad either if it happens. Putin won’t have time to mobilize after the election anyway, while Ukraine should have gotten F-16s in place and some other things in place.
I don’t quite believe that Russia will collapse from within because the population revolts, but now things are moving a bit more, maybe, maybe it can happen after all. Keeping my fingers crossed for that bubble!
12:55 – Johan No.1
Absolutely, a mobilization after the election has a lead time of a couple of months before they stand in a hole and watch the firestorm coming towards them.
19:49 – Johan No.1
Biden can send as much as he wants to Ukraine without Congress, starting to get annoyed at Biden.
https://x.com/Lets_Go_Fellas/status/1747970531356241982?s=20
19:59 – MatsExtrude
If that’s true, it’s strange if he doesn’t take advantage of that opportunity… Then maybe it’s regulated what is considered such that you don’t need it yourself, so that might limit the selection… But the cluster grenades are, as far as I understand, being phased out, so they should be able to send everything that’s left!
11:50 – Johan No.1
It is a bit of a waiting time right now, the Russian offensive operations are “small-scale,” the parentheses mean that they are not small-scale for the group that has to defend itself at all but there are no brigade attacks across the fields.
-The rumor is that RU will attack near Kharkiv but that rumor was circulating last winter as well.
-They are conducting smaller movements east of Vuhledar.
-Northern Luhansk is also rumored to be planning a shining offensive that will take them to the banks of the Oskil and according to Grankovitch this morning offensive operations have started. RU has noticeably reinforced in the Kreminna forests and around there.
-We absolutely hear nothing about strategic reserves being added beyond what we have written about earlier.
-We have heard rumors that they have pulled units from the southern front to Dnepr and Avdiivka.
https://x.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1745531376068178320?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Ukraine is currently conducting positional battles where they can – there is quite a lot of that which shows that they still have offensive capability but nothing major.
We are thus waiting for a RU offensive and also a UA offensive.
Looking back –
In autumn 2022, UA carried out spectacular offensives while RU mobilized in panic and on January 6, 2023, RU started its winter offensive which was very bloody (for themselves) and had exciting highlights like the miracle at Vuhledar where entire brigades disappeared and Wagner was dissolved as a fighting unit.
May 4, 2023 (was it?) Ukraine started its spring offensive and they pushed on until early autumn when RU launched a surprisingly violent offensive at Avdiivka which expanded to Bakhmut and northern Luhansk. The greatest losses in the entire war were taken this autumn by the Russian side.
In my world, this means that Russian units have taken a lot of damage partly from the UA offensive and then from their own disastrous offensive operations.
It also means that Ukrainian offensive reserves have had several months to rest, train new personnel and review the materiel – that is quite sufficient.
We will see, if the rumors turn out to be false again it probably means that RU has run out of steam?
It is close to Putin’s fateful choice, the army has achieved absolutely nothing on the battlefield and Avdiivka was an ambitious attempt to show success. There is no logic in stopping now if you have reserves left to kill off, a last screaming saber-rattling attack across the fields should be possible to squeeze out of the army.
There are strategic reserves left so an attempt near Kharkiv and one near Avdiivka is probably possible but then it’s over if we go by the number of CAA and AC that would be under formation – about half are used up.
Near Kharkiv, RU has zero chance of breakthrough – if you remember from the Kupiansk sprint there is an east-west river in that area east of Kharkiv and west of Kharkiv there is also decent defensive terrain and above all there are fieldworks over a year old in the area.
Avdiivka can only go one way for the Russians, they will drive their columns of heavy vehicles straight into the minefields, the mining and drone swarms again and a month later it is over.
However, Ukraine should not miss the chance for some land grab because the low point is now and not in spring or summer. If they have figured out how to get through the minefields it is time.
Waiting times as said.
Regarding Bashkortostan, it is a “federal subject” if I understand correctly with a bit more autonomy and an area with 4 million inhabitants as well as one of Russia’s richer regions (not the population but the area). They seem really angry that someone has been arrested for “extremism” (something about language and traditions and anti-war) and Rosgvardia is acting harshly.
This is kryptonite that the blogger posted, a woman urges the men fighting in Ukraine to come home and defend Bashkiria.
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/1747572772186787915?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And this is also kryptonite – Bashkir soldiers urging soldiers from a couple of republics to leave Ukraine.
https://x.com/_FreyaFae/status/1747609032360124686?s=20
The quick-witted quickly realize that an ethnic marker has now been introduced here – us versus them – which is very good.
It seems to be becoming more and more of a popular sport to protest and eventually some area must discover that no Rosgvardia came even though they occupied the parliament and then realize that they are free to do as they please and take over the republic.
There is a lot of Rosgvardia in Ukraine and those who remain in RU are not enough for much, I would not be surprised if it is the same gang that had to come here as the ones who had to prevent the occupation of the airport in some other nearby republic a while ago.
Right now RU seems to be shutting down Telegram and running an information blockade so we have to hope that UA hackers, anonymous and NAFO do everything to spread the information to every corner of the colonized country that revolution is good.
I always listen to what Ukraine themselves say – they have said that they will meet the rocket rain proportionally this year and they have done so in kind.
They have also said that Russia will be split and that they are working together with all liberation fronts as well as having their own operators in the country Russia who carry out liberation deeds.
We have seen city after city go dark with failing infrastructure as a result, half of all regions have to varying degrees acute technical faults with electricity and heating.
Maybe the time is now for popular protests and liberation fueled by Ukraine and the liberation fronts?
It is probably simmering here and there and for republics and oblasts in the country Russia that feel oppressed, Ukraine must reasonably be a superhero I think?
If Ukraine approaches them and gives them a roadmap to freedom it should be quite attractive and seen as achievable.
It is no coincidence that there is a big demonstration in Bashkortostan and that on the same day films come out where women urge men to return and soldiers in Ukraine urge everyone to return – there is some planning behind this I am quite sure of.
For me, here in times when decolonization is absolutely the highest fashion, Ukraine is doing exactly right by trying to decolonize Russia – they are right on time simply and trying to make the world a better place.
Landsorten posted the first BTR-50 knocked out yesterday 🎂💥
https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1747631487900352975?t=4gxD7BWqvnqsHCiN-7fzDQ&s=19
Does anyone believe that Putin’s war is going well when he fights with T62, BTR-50 and T54-55?
I wonder how many believed me when I posted the picture of lined-up BTR-50s and said that we would soon see them knocked out 😀
This is directly embarrassing but not as shameful as it was for the mechanized infantry to go into battle on old trucks from the 1950s. That company probably agreed never to talk about that attack ever again.
May 9, 2022, we all understood how sluggish the country Russia is, and we are not alone in being surprised at how much Russian soldiers, Russia, and the Russian leadership can absorb. Zalizhny thought the losses would make RU pull back.
Now everyone makes the mistake of thinking that this is some kind of natural law that Russia can sit in such a self-dug deep hole forever.
They actually cannot, it is the country that has had three upheavals (got pushback on the word revolution) within 100 years, and it is also the country that spectacularly lost most of its wars.
What we can say with certainty is that when the external pressure is this great on the country Russia, it has historically collapsed.
Now that is the bubble list, and the committee never brought it up for a decision, so I still cannot predict the outcome on that, but that Russia turns inward is emerging as a good shared first place now together with Putin being taken out.
The Russian influence operation that if Russia collapses and splits 1989-style, the nuclear weapons will fall into the wrong hands is quite far-fetched since that did not happen in 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed and split into many new countries.
I don’t think China, the West, or MENA want any rogue state to get hold of nuclear weapons and get the idea, so it will be a group effort to secure them.
Then China, the West, and MENA will tie new republics to themselves, and the country Russia will become a significantly smaller threat going forward.
What the West should be careful about is normalizing relations with Russia because we have black on white how well that went, but we should immediately tie new countries to ourselves.
Ukraine will become a hub where surrounding oblasts are welcome to cooperate if they want. Guess if Ukraine, which then is in the EU, can place production in these oblasts and have super cheap manufacturing sold at EU prices. In 15 years, Ukrainians will be synonymous with wealthy Porsche owners and Gucci shoes, manufactured in nearby oblasts 😀