12:12 – Johan No.1
Seems to be intense in places in Avdiivka 😐
https://x.com/militarylandnet/status/1754779723874324647?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
17:22 – Johan No.1
Insanely cool, Storm Shadow sweeps over an S300 battery and the Russians are standing there swearing.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kkr5dimqgt22
18:34 – MatsExtrude
🤣
19:33 – Johan No.1
RU is paying extortionate prices for Shaheds 😂😂
https://x.com/colbybadhwar/status/1754909259546935512?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
20:35 – Johan No.1
A pretty good point to raise is that UA can shoot them down with missiles because the cost-benefit ratio is acceptable.
If they are shot down with light machine guns, it’s a huge win.
11:52 – Johan No.1
The Lions
https://x.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1754595832689532983?s=20
We tend to always focus on one thing at a time and now the oil industry has been the new black. Worth noting that drone and other fun attacks on targets in Ukraine and nearby oblasts are ongoing continuously – it is a very intense and constant campaign.
https://x.com/astraiaintel/status/1754250778582077658?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then there are also liberation acts against the rail network and signal boxes, and evidently also water treatment plants and district heating. As long as it is below freezing in Russia, there will be large cascading effects from everything that freezes and breaks, so maximum impact.
Yesterday the badger brought up that 75% of Russia’s electricity production comes from oil and gas. If you cut out oil and gas production, you logically also slow down Russia’s electricity production – an extra bonus to factor into the bigger slow-motion train wreck.
The noticeable pinpricks against war-important industry are also ongoing, the factory targeted by Lancet drones got a visit (earlier!) and the facility that manufactures engines for tanks and IFVs as well. No gearbox, no vehicle.
What we don’t hear about right now are campaigns against Russian citizens to shape opinion but just as Russia conducts this in Ukraine, and the West, Ukraine is working intensively on it in Russia.
Just arrested “intelligence officers” in Ukraine who were Russian spies.
https://x.com/kyivindependent/status/1754811995289800855?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Bashkortostan has now been named one of the larger protests in Russia and we can be absolutely sure that Ukraine has good relations with all liberation fronts that help with all of the above, but also oppressed and colonized indigenous peoples who seek their individual freedom according to international law.
Ukraine is a superhero for all freedom-thirsty oppressed and colonized indigenous peoples in colonized Russia.
Something enormously simple would be to start popular protests in a large number of republics in connection with the presidential election so that the republics and oblasts themselves discover that the Rosgvardia is not enough?
Imagine their surprise when after the third day of protests and march to the governor’s palace they still see no sign of any internal troops – somewhere around there they probably take over and declare themselves liberated and decolonized 😀
Never forget that Putin has silenced Prigozhin and Girkin as well as all other war-critical voices – he has straightened out the entire media landscape.
At the same time as he works intensively with his influence operations in the West and our media year after year uncritically reproduces their narrative.
So there is a very strong positive bias for Russia in the information circulating (except here) right now.
Magpies brought up that the Russian strategic reserve is 60,000 but only 20,000 are equipped.
The article is brand new from ISW: https://eng.obozrevatel.com/section-war/news-the-isw-assessed-what-the-deployment-of-reserves-in-ukraine-will-bring-to-russia-and-made-a-forecast-for-2024-map-05-02-2024.html
Not much of a strategic reserve there – what happened to “quantity is a quality in itself,” asks a worried friend in a bunker in Altai.
There should admittedly be about half a million soldiers in Ukraine now but those are rear functions, logistics, air defense, depots, the 12,000 on Crimea, the air force, navy, administration so the spearhead is significantly fewer than that.
And above all the spearhead is hard pressed as there is reverse Darwinism in the Russian army and it is also the spearhead that has been attacking since last autumn.
Unclear if Rosgvardia, FSB et.al are included in this but logistics and FSB will not accept dying in a potato field in Ukraine, it will be full throttle towards the border.
Then I am, by the way, a bit curious about what reserves are starting to appear on the southern front – has ISW counted them?
https://x.com/anno1540/status/1754511268096995431?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
With what we have received for a while now, it appears that RU intends offensive operations at Avdiivka, northern Luhansk and possibly the southern front. That is an ambitious attempt by the Russians to break the back of RU and we can expect offensive operations also at the northern front, Bakhmut and Vuhledar.
Then it is actually even worse that the West has delayed with ammunition, now Borrell went out and clarified that production is not a problem but they do not prioritize Ukraine, they sell to other non-warring countries first.
https://x.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1754564892068073881?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
It is always all these discussions about how it is not possible to carry out offensives during certain periods and then the Russians do it anyway for the third year in a row.
I think the legend who at the beginning of the war informed the rest of us ignorant in the thread that the Russians only have one mode – if it doesn’t work with the level of violence they increase the level of violence until they win or it crashes should get the Nobel Prize, I don’t remember his name.
We will see another round of absolutely pointless offensives where RU takes astronomical losses and where a new influence operation is launched that Russia can keep going like this for years until they win.
Now the thread has done its homework unlike many others and knows that there is a shortage of MBTs, IFVs and artillery in the depots compared to losses and guesses that probably 30% of what remains is unusable.
We also know that new production is laughably small, 400 MBTs during 2023 and most of that was modifications and such clarified directly from depots, i.e. unmodified vehicles.
Then we have after LW’s post about the number of missing who have been searched for and a comparison with losses of heavy materiel vs. the reduction in depots a somewhat confirmation that the number of dead and knocked-out materiel is roughly correct.
We also have information on how large STRATEGIC reserves have been prepared and before this offensive reserve arrived at Avdiivka and maybe also one up in northern Luhansk about half had been put into combat (consumed) – that took a few months.
Then we know that Russian artillery fire has gone down from 63,000 shells per day to 10,000 shells per day.
Now another Russian influence operation is about to be launched, shame on those who give up, that the best for the world is that UA gives up land.
Keep an eye on who in the West starts pushing this because the security services do so the last ones will end up on the list.
https://x.com/kyivindependent/status/1754746070582587869?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Now that the USA is a quagmire of internal party-political conflicts and Russian subversive activities fuel everything they can so they are almost down for the count, google a bit about the liberation of Texas…, Europe has taken up the superhero mantle and slapped on the plastic mask.
Germany was first out with huge support packages this year and Scholz stands strong.
https://x.com/Azovsouth/status/1754591549734723757?s=20
Then the UK came in as a good second and now the French don’t want to be worse – credit where credit is due.
https://x.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1754604348552700030?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1754607453365309728?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Summing it up a bit, there are hundreds of new tanks arriving fully modified, so the new tanks are definitely on par with those being supplied to RU combat units in Ukraine.
We always get caught up in the drone weapon, but UA continuously manufactures its own artillery and IFVs and has its own ammunition production, and now the forges in the West are starting to heat up, and during 2024 deliveries of the first newly manufactured and paid-for IFVs and artillery systems from the West will begin. Tanks are probably not far off either but have a slightly longer lead time and need to be license-produced.
The strike aircraft will be delivered before summer, right?
Bulgaria and Greece are probably slowly being persuaded to open their arsenals, but I still miss one thing actually.
Spain and Portugal, which receive their EU grants, could instead be bought out for unit-equipped materiel with the same funds and sent to UA?
Buy it at new price, they would have gotten the funds anyway without any counterperformance?
Now UA has its own instructors on all delivered vehicles so more of the same causes no problems.
Both countries have Leo2 and that tank has proven to be highly capable.
Then I hope UA gets to shop freely with those 50 billion EUR and what the USA sends, or the 10% that doesn’t stay in the USA of those 60 billion USD.
Ukraine needs to get a large number of fragmentation-protected vehicles so they “can afford to waste” them going forward.
The tank is now a 4 km sniper and you can manage with fewer.
All types of fragmentation-protected vehicles are fine, a railbus that is to deliver the infantry close enough to the defense system.
I guess Hungary has gone too far and that there will be consequences here – the arrogance of the parliament not showing up when all NATO ambassadors are present is absolutely enormous. You simply don’t behave like that as a recipient and dependent country.
Take the graph below and consider whether China will want to pursue a scorched earth tactic with Russia or if they are starting to get fed up with this now?
https://x.com/hotsotin/status/1754608221392683399?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
I have consistently believed that we have not yet seen China’s cards but my main thesis has been that they are not interested in a global active conflict. From what we have seen so far, it points in that direction.
Putin thus stands completely alone and has the entire West against him – defeat is only a matter of time and the consequences of this Russia will have to live with for generations. The global atomic bomb has already exploded and what we see now is just the path to defeat and that Russia (hopefully) turns inward.