12:26 – Johan No.1
Interesting as usual, Volcano.
Yep, this is the beginning of our time’s great global conflict and there is value in keeping it on the agenda.
There are infinitely many twists to debate in history, but when it comes to the UA war, it is my conviction that we either stamp out the global conflict and get a long period of peace or it escalates. Russia does everything to escalate but has so far failed.
17:28 – MatsExtrude
👍
12:12 – Johan No.1
It is quite clear that as long as Russia agreed with the West to limit all hostilities to Ukrainian territory, the impact on domestic opinion was minimal. Exactly how that discussion went, historians will have to figure out, but the playing field was rigged in Putin’s favor, and in the beginning Scholz and Macron were almost annoyed that Ukraine had the audacity to defend itself and not just give up.
As soon as Ukraine received permission from the highly morally upright Western principal to take the war to Russia, it became a domestic political nightmare that Putin cannot handle at all at present, and it happened quickly.
2022 was a tough year for Ukraine, but when they swept clean in Kharkiv, the brigades could have continued and occupied Kursk and Belgorod, for example – this was the absolute Russian low point in the autumn of 2022 before mobilization, and they swept away all resistance in that area in one sweep.
Then the Russians would have been forced in panic to move units from UA to the northern front, and UA could have struck even harder down south – you know, that offensive Zalizhny was not allowed to carry out by NATO commanders down towards the door to Crimea.
That the West has drawn bright red lines on the maps and forced Zelensky to force his commanders not to fight on equal terms is a huge failure no matter how you look at it, but it is also politically very unwise and accepting enormous risk without much concern – it does not look good on many CVs.
That the West then forced Zalizhny into alternative offensives is even worse.
Imagine if the West had delivered all 8,500 armored vehicles already for the autumn offensive 2022 so Ukraine could have attacked with something other than M113 at Kherson.
Imagine if Ukraine had had the advanced aircraft just in time for the spring offensive 2023.
Yes, you almost get a stroke thinking about this again, but today it is not my point to be angry at the West’s constant tardiness and try to raise blood pressure in the thread.
The point today is that now everything coincides in 2024 like in the perfect horoscope, the stars are aligned in a nice row –
-the West no longer has problems crossing the Russian border (possibly still with Western weapons).
-the West has ensured that UA now receives a fairly substantial addition of equipment in Eastern bloc manufacture from Morocco, Kuwait, Greece, and Bulgaria.
-the West’s support packages are still quite decent and the USA seems to be using third parties to get support into Ukraine now, 60 Bradleys on their way to Greece, for example – a pure frontman arrangement.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kkdvc7qjkl2y
-the advanced aircraft will probably arrive in the first half of this year?
-new mine-clearing equipment and bridges are in place.
-offensive reserves exist.
-the drone weapon is like an angry swarm of hornets near the front.
-the rear is being hit with Western missiles where deliveries are now secured.
-in Russia, SOF, liberation fronts, and long-range drones cooperate in a campaign against railways, the war industry, electrical infrastructure, and the oil industry, and it is very violent with mushroom clouds and death.
-operation “turn off the lights” is going beyond expectations, small attacks have enormous cascading effects.
All that allowed Russia to cling to the slippery slope is now removed, right, there is only a soaped smooth slope left now?
They managed to cheat for far too long and it is the West’s full responsibility which of course will be completely forgotten when history is written.
Over time, the domestic political situation in Russia will deteriorate sharply, and if pressure is increased, it will happen faster.
I think I sense the following in the shadows –
-UA’s campaign inside Russia is unstoppable and increasing and it is only a matter of time before it gets lively for real in some republic or oblast (or whatever they are called).
-UA loses less equipment than RU (1:5) and receives a lot of equipment, so overall they have better resourced units than RU at the fronts.
-UA had the initiative throughout the spring offensive and lost it when the RU autumn suicide campaign started, but now UA has slowly begun to regain the initiative and that will continue (but they do not have the initiative yet).
The mistake too many make is that they misinterpreted everything and believe that UA wore itself out during the spring, now RU has the initiative again and coupled with all the worries about ammunition shortages, Ukraine simply cannot manage more – save the children, give up land, capitulate to Putin.
I see it as a tactical pause after a miscalculation where they adjusted in time and that they are now accelerating again for the next round of offensive operations when they come.
Then the EU approved the 50 billion EUR package and UA went and sank Ivanets (even though I first thought it was a bigger ship 😀).
Right now it is really pitch black for Putin.
It is also this that must come to pass, Putin and the other hollow-eyed demons in the criminal clan must begin to feel that the Ukraine war costs more than it is worth for them.
A bit like when you overcommit on a house, not until the savings account starts heading towards zero and you go into the red every month do you accept to sell.
The absolute best thing Ukraine is also striving for is that it starts moving internally in Russia – then the war is over in a week or so.
All this chivalry that the West forced Ukraine to just stand opposite the Russian army and “fight it out” is madness but now thankfully we are past that.
The world is not fair but one did believe that our overpaid experts, elected officials, and those in responsible positions could do better than this. And no, we are not sitting here looking in the rearview mirror and complaining – we were far ahead in thinking in this thread and everything has really just happened years too late.
This one is interesting because Himarsed has tried to go through satellite images of rocket artillery from 2021 and there were significantly fewer than official figures indicated – expected 😀
https://x.com/highmarsed/status/1753117121276453060?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
I’m stealing the below from Grankovich (sending a thousand for the royalty)
“Massive (volume and technology) technological leap based on unmanned vehicles, electronic warfare, and real-time information exchange, altogether this gives front-line air superiority to Ukraine, prevents Russian maneuver – for example, prevents local counteroffensives to retake lost positions – and creates decisive conditions for a new type of Ukrainian maneuver warfare that gives Ukraine the strategic advantage in the war.”
It is a free interpretation of Zalizhny’s latest interview but since I can never refrain from this kind of thing – wasn’t there in the big campaign plan early 2023 a discussion about Ukraine denying RU air superiority with air defense and creating its own air superiority with drones and that the advanced aircraft was if not obsolete then at least not the critical material everything depended on – you could simply bridge with poor man’s solutions.
That is actually what Zalizhny says here and then the big campaign plan from about a year ago was right in that assumption (even though we have not yet seen it play out).
The drone deaths are astronomical (locally) right now, UA denies RU drones with effective EW screens while simultaneously knocking out the Russians’ EW screens with the classic reconnaissance and artillery, then letting their drones roam freely.
Zelensky informed us that UA will produce one million drones in 2024, plus everything they buy and receive from the West.
They will locally achieve air superiority and then it will be mechanized combat; someone in the thread also wrote that they expect this in 2024 a few weeks ago 😀
Probability-wise, I think we will see some movement before the presidential election, and I hope we get to see offensive operations before RU manages to mobilize and refill the trenches again, but we shall see. It’s very much Zalizny’s style, but they are partly driven by deliveries from the West.
Ukraine has throughout the war solved the task with what they have, and right now they are effectively pulverizing Putin’s whack-a-mole while Putin can’t keep up with knocking down all the drone-moles popping out of the holes.
The war is, as is well known, a bunch of bars where you try to lower the opponent’s capability in different bars, increase your own, and find the right combo that wins the war.
Yep, RU had a nice bar called mining in 2023 but now it’s identified and countermeasures acquired.
Russian artillery is decimated, LV is decimated, heavy vehicles are starting to become scarce, and they are denying air and drones with LV and EW.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is building up further mechanized capability (add up all announced deliveries since the turn of the year).
And ensuring that the drone weapon reaches the critical mass needed to put a wet blanket over all Russian movements so that mechanized combat can be conducted again.
The air force and army aviation will be continuously decimated in small spikes on the chart when they get the right ammunition is a reasonable guess.
There were two things we were supposed to watch for – UA running out of gas and starting to retreat, and Russian mobilization. Neither of these two have happened, so a Ukrainian smashing victory is on the cards.
To me, it’s starting to look like Ukraine has partly managed to find the right combo and at the same time knock down RU bars in critical capabilities so that during 2024 they reach the war-winning combination.
The only thing besides enormous mobilization that could throw a wrench in the works is if China goes all in with heavy vehicles and artillery, but here one can hope that the West doesn’t just roll over on its back and die if it becomes relevant. China has internal problems that far exceed the gain of involving itself in the war and getting the West completely against it.
Putin was out fishing for peace a few days ago, so much was that probing worth (nothing).
https://x.com/kyivindependent/status/1753286477444792337?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
If you remember when Scholz was the worst in class and then everything changed in a few months, we used to joke that it was a pity for the janitor who would have to sweep up all the blood in the meeting rooms after the meetings.
Then I have tried to point out that when Germany united, Russia got loyal people in high positions throughout the administration and they have effectively been able to brake and steer decisions in a certain direction, and that maybe that was why Germany was so slow at the start.
As usual, there were always a couple who thought it was wild speculation and not true.
A start is at least that AfD has been caught taking instructions from FSB handlers on how decisions should be influenced.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1753129337325486562?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
This one was up yesterday, now 20% of the Black Sea Fleet has been sunk by a country without a navy.
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/1753033435512213929?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Before that happens, it will never happen, but if Turkey sends its what, 4 S400 divisions to Ukraine to be welcomed back into the West, that would be pretty funny 😀
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1752983878757662941?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
A bit about Biden’s response to Iran’s increased acts of war – as I suspect, Biden hesitates a bit here and right now they go out and announce IN ADVANCE all the targets they will strike so Iran sends home all senior officers immediately. Counteracts the purpose a bit, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t feel like the US will put its foot down hard right away, and I..el got upset and knocked out what they could in some raids.
If you remember from before, about half of the strategic reserve has been used up and now it seems they are sending down another larger well-equipped unit from the strategic reserve to Avdiivka, T90 and BMP3.
https://x.com/anno1540/status/1753353911006593293?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Yes, I like it when we get to the point where things happen that we have strongly pushed in the thread as an absolute truth long before.
Putin is really going through a dark period right now and the walls are starting to bulge outward worryingly on the pressure cooker Russia. Since it is a criminal clan, the next generation is always waiting for the opportunity to seize power, and it is then when the country turns inward that Ukraine can fully free itself and a lot of oppressed indigenous peoples can throw off the pitch-black chains of slavery and gain their human rights freedom from hundreds of years of colonization and oppression. Not that this is what Putin intended, but he would probably get a pat on the shoulder from Marx for this people’s revolution for real.
One of this war’s great disappointments is that the “Azov thrust” did not deliver as intended and the war was prolonged, but it is what it is; it will be fun to see the first real workers’ revolution in Russia ahead anyway.
We have previously joked about RU nuclear carriers being shot down with LV or EW. Now RU themselves prove they understand the weapon is obsolete because they imprison all the scientists who worked on the carriers, MXT posted this morning.
We have speculated a bit that the changed tone is because the West saw Ukraine shoot down the nuclear carriers (not with nuclear weapons), who knows.
However, it is indisputable that RU can no longer dangle the nuclear threat in front of the West, and both Putin and the West know this very well – well played Ukraine…
Putin’s special operation has taken Russia back to the Tsarist era but not as Putin imagined, and he is gloomy and down about this as he shuffles around in the too-big slippers on the bunker floor in Altai, glancing suspiciously at the bodyguards and wondering who is Brutus.
Ukraine seems to be smelling the morning air and the panic is gone here – they see the smashing victory on the horizon.