11:10 – Johan No.1
Yep, the cluster munitions were excellent according to UA and there are 2 million that are to be scrapped.
20 ATACMS took out 25 helicopters and there are probably a thousand or so and several thousand in various versions.
Then we have the thermobaric shells that the USA is not allowed to use and that are to be scrapped – fewer than the cluster munitions but exist in large quantities.
In depots that will never be deployed there are thousands of M113, various Ptgb, M60 tanks and lots of other stuff that probably falls under the term surplus materiel.
If Morocco now gets to buy almost 1000 Abrams and Bradleys, then surely a coordinated campaign from the EU paying in cash can buy quite a lot?
Otherwise it becomes quite obvious that it is political…
11:11 – Johan No.1
You can start running directly on the transport fleet from its base in Hungary and apparently Biden can approve quite a lot directly.
11:34 – Johan No.1
He writes what he believes but…
“When it comes to ammunition, the EU has only delivered a fraction of what was promised. The production capacity simply does not exist, and at the same time especially the French oppose buying from other parts of the world or co-producing with”
According to Borrell, enough is being produced but other contracts than Ukraine are prioritized. That production capacity is lacking is Russian influence and he apparently took a jab at that.
11:39 – Johan No.1
Now I saw your conclusion, or his conclusion above, and that is completely right so maybe I took the wrong text passage 😀
12:02 – MatsExtrude
👍 Well written!
14:24 – Johan No.1
Starting to get a bit worried about Krunky too now that he’s been down for the second day.
We’ll see what tonight’s update on Deepstate tells us about Avdiivka.
Do we have any Gregg today?
In the good old days you got everything a few days before from Girkin if you sifted through his information 😀
15:44 – Johan No.1
Here you have a very good summary of Zalizhnys time as Chief of Staff, must-read actually to understand how popular he has been. He was simply a unifying force.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kl2zn4i65s2b
08:39 – Johan No.1
It looks worrying on Deepstate in Avdiivka, this is going too fast and it is likely that UA will abandon the settlement in Avdiivka reasonably?
If I were the commander of the defense of Avdiivka and did not have tunnels out of the town I would be worried now. Deepstate is delayed and now the Russians have almost direct fire on the watercourse going up towards Lastockhyne which was a bit of a hidden retreat route.
I don’t see how UA will make counterattacks, they can’t attack out of the factory area because RU has the slag heap and the wedge is too wide. Getting offensive reserves into the southern settlement of Avdiivka itself also looks impossible.
It would then be a larger offensive attempt against Krasnohorivka but they have to get up on the dominating terrain that RU holds and they have tried before.
It may very well be that what we are seeing play out now is a delaying battle to inflict losses before letting go of the town, we will see.
Maybe they keep the factory area and establish a new defensive line down towards Lastochyne and Siverne?
09:11 – MatsExtrude
At the same time Denys says he has heard that there are no problems with logistics.. Maybe there are tunnels?
10:48 – Johan No.1
Saw this from you above Erik14
“West/US seems to have suggested a main direction Orikhiv axis. Probably the most fortified direction with several Surovikin lines? A bit strange.”
Do you have the source?
Smack right into Tokmak and that the West had suggested the best place for breakthrough are very different from each other and one of the reasons given is that Zalizhny did not listen to the West’s offensive proposal and my money is on Zalizhny saved lives.
10:55 – Johan No.1
Apparently, now I’m supposed to sulk for two days in a row, a bit of a personal record but there have been some gloomy periods earlier in the war – Lysychansk and late December 2022.
The link below is absolutely right and I guess I should clarify that my whining is not directed at Ukraine, where it’s wizard level, but at the West which refuses to face reality.
https://x.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1755670201574563846?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Cesar touched on this a bit yesterday and I was thinking the same when watching the medal ceremony – the spring offensive perhaps broke Zalizhny. Mechanized brigades that loyally carried out the task and fully trusted Zalizhny took terrible losses, it must have been indescribably hard for him those months.
When two media-famous people divorce, there’s always a joint press release saying “we have simply grown apart but are the best and closest of friends and work together to make the world a better place, nothing will come between better air for all poor children and we are passionate about it.”
Only Johnny Depp broke the script and got all his darkest secrets on the front pages 😀
After all this, I am more than reasonably interested in what is to come because that’s what counts.
Not everything is as it seems and at the same medal ceremony Zelensky looks quite uncertain when Budanov steps forward and I get the impression that Zalizhny had planned to retake Ukraine in 2024 but now they are trying to sell “active defense” as a winning concept instead.
Don’t underestimate a bad unit commander who sucks the will to live out of the whole unit in a few months. Sirsky’s job is primarily to lead – both boss and leader. Ukraine’s Chief of Defense is currently one of the world’s most important jobs so let’s hope Zelensky had the right motivations for this change and that Sirsky is the right man in the right place.
The spring offensive was negative and right now Avdiivka is balanced and the whole of Ukraine knows that the West isn’t delivering anything – a certain feeling of abandonment if I may guess.
The only thing that counts is what the riflemen in the defense systems think and feel and I’m curious about that, Rikkitikitdjfjdk had a first-hand source – would like more of that.
A very strong signal that Ukraine has no intention to start negotiating is that Russia’s oil industry is burning right now and it has been very active at the fronts since the turn of the year.
One is literally begging on their bare knees that the West doesn’t pull out any more yellow cards under the table – now Budanov must be allowed to strike where they can and where it does the most damage.
But the fact remains – it will be difficult to achieve lasting peace if the 1991 borders are not restored and for that the Russians must be removed from their water-filled pits.
I feel that we have once again missed an opportunity here and it is only the West’s sluggishness that is to blame – had Ukraine had ammunition for indirect weapons it would look very different right now. Previous attacks on Avdiivka didn’t even come close before they were grilled in a cloud of indirect fire – that speaks clearly and is hard to miss even for us diagnosed optimists.
Avdiivka – if we go by Deepstatemap which is conservative in its updates, Avdiivka is overflown in the north because RU has held on to Stepove for a long time.
In the south RU now has a good (bad!) foothold in the buildings.
And in northern Avdiivka the wedge just below the factory area has now crossed the railway and it is widening southwards very fast – it is worrying that the railway was passed so quickly and I believe one can speak in terms of a local breakthrough in Avdiivka as it is at a critical point – the disputed area (gray) is now at the factory area in a direction where UA likely has not prepared its best defense.
I want to claim that northern factory area and southern buildings, Avdiivka, no longer have contact except through tunnels if they exist.
The counterattacks have not played out yet but to me it looks like Avdiivka will be abandoned quite soon because counterattacks must occur at Stepove, northern Avdiivka and southern Avdiivka while RU has brought forward strategic reserves now in combat, probably a new CAA, Kadyrovites and storm Z. CAA was also well equipped with T90 and BMP2-3.
It’s very simple – Ukraine has not managed to decimate RU units during the advance and so they move forward fighting in towns instead.
If the wedge in northern Avdiivka continues to expand southwards at the same pace as so far, we can probably ring the bell in a few days already.
I don’t know Avdiivka well enough but assume that the rapid advance in the north is because they got inside prepared defenses, they are inside UA’s decision circle and it is always unpleasant to experience that as a commander.
The defense in the south can still nestle down to Lastockhyne in the riverbed and as said – “tunnels or no tunnels?”
But quite soon the southern part of Avdiivka will be cut off and the garrison is one successful push in the south away from being completely encircled – guess if there will be attempts against Siverne soon, time for that defense to fill up all the machine gun belts they have now.
There is a possible problem – if Ukraine has little ammunition there is a real risk that the Russians gain momentum here and can advance further but we’ll see – I see a string of towns west of Avdiivka that are very likely well prepared for defense and the worst-case scenario should be a front flattening when they leave the main town Avdiivka.
We are a month before Putin’s re-election and giving him Avdiivka as a graduation present was quite sad but the hope is that Budanov will drown the festivities in a cloud of drones – provided he gets permission from the morally superior West.
We are not at the point where the West has the whole mess in their lap yet but just as the discussion about Russia needing to feel that the war costs too much, Ukraine, based on the West abandoning them, may consider the best way forward is to give up Donbass and the West can do nothing about it once it plays out. Then the path to a global conflict has actually begun.
Now that’s not what Zelensky says in his speech nor anyone else but how often does a CEO say there’s a full-on fight at board meetings, that they can’t agree on anything and that the CFO stole 10 million and ran?
The war is soon entering its third year and the country Ukraine is very hard pressed so that the West continues to slack surf through the biggest geopolitical crisis of my life is so incomprehensible that I don’t even bother to mock it – F in all grades.
There is an absolute real risk that when Ukraine releases Avdiivka, the entire EU will, out of pure reflex, consider that they need all the equipment for their own countries’ defense instead – we shall see…
Our own Chief of Defense wanted that already early in 2023 and opposed sending CV90s and 122s – guess how it will start sounding all over Europe if Ukraine begins to be pushed back. There isn’t a single Chief of Defense willing to give up anything at all, and then add Russian subversive activities on top of that, and we have quite a toxic cocktail to handle.
Like a damn self-fulfilling prophecy🤬 (which we have actually said a few times in the thread).
ISW really pulls no punches here and paints on with a consequence analysis 😐
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kl2dvu7yc22g
We should wait until the counterattacks at Avdiivka have been carried out, but right now the EU’s security policy feels like a very bad joke.
I absolutely went ape crazy when I read the Politico article, first Zalizhny was not allowed to carry out the offensives he wanted, and then NATO command forced him into all sorts of crap that didn’t go as they planned in their sandbox games because they had forgotten to relate to reality in their protected workshop.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-general-runs-out-of-road-kyiv-washington/
Just reading below is enough to understand what a bloodbath Zalizhny avoided, thank the gods he waved away the worst proposals, the West hadn’t resourced the offensive 😐 –
“The Pentagon pushed for the Ukrainian military to make a major thrust focused on one area where planners thought a breakthrough was possible. Instead, Kyiv chose several assaults across the front in the belief that would make it difficult for the Russians to reinforce many points at once”.
RU could have concentrated on a single point and then rained Ahkp, FAB500, FAB1500 and TOS1 over the UA buildup, and of course, they would have gotten stuck in the same 10km deep minefield anyway, right!
Didn’t I write yesterday that now history will be written so that negative information about Zalizhny is to be expected 😀
Yep, not exactly good news anywhere right now, one must admit, good that it’s Saturday so you can attack the star beer early and found a tube of green Pringles chips. We are home all day because there is a marathon in the city and no point risking going out on the streets.
Have somewhat recovered from the lynch mob but there are new much bigger strikes in two weeks and then I’ll stay home – the colleague usually buys cheese and ham and I a bottle of rum when a strike is declared. However, it will be quite boring to sit with a big glass of rum and watch the triumphant Peruvian nibbling if Ukraine leaves Avdiivka.
Then the airlines no longer get paid in forex so they are starting to stop flying to the country, Emirates has canceled and Air France and KLM are considering those options – hope one manages to leave before flight bans 😀
Inflation in the currency has been 150% in about half a year and now they have just agreed on a minimum monthly wage equivalent to if me and my colleague go out for lunch at a decent restaurant and top it off with a can of cola each.
Then the project manager has not reported work accidents (lynch mob) up the chain so I went to a higher manager in the Netherlands but he sent my email back to the project manager – I don’t work in the best of organizations, we can calmly state. Last time I had something like this, the project manager and higher manager at headquarters were fired but it took its time and it’s easier to leave. However, I am hailed as a legend at that company because many apparently didn’t like the higher manager at headquarters, so maybe worth trying again and see how it goes 😀
Back to Ukraine – it’s enormously simple, Ukraine lacks ammunition for indirect weapons and then they cannot disrupt the supply chain deeply and they cannot knock out Russian artillery at the pace they need. Now they seem soon to run short on LV ammunition and then they won’t be able to keep FAB500/1500 and Ahkp away either 😭
Firstly, larger offensive operations are not to be considered from UA’s side in such a situation except locally, and secondly, their defense becomes static points that RU can effectively use their TOS1, FAB500/1500 against.
Ukraine needs to get all types of ammunition and they need to –
– knock out the frontline bases just on the Russian side of the border (which are now half-empty but will be refilled again).
– knock out the supply chains (again).
– pre-emptively fight against artillery and LV (again).
– pre-emptively fight the front lines.
– deny RU air supremacy with LV.
Since the West saw a low point here, they need to start over again 🤬
I apparently had hope that UA would try anyway at some front section but with the new direction from Zelensky about “active defense” and the dismissal of Zalizhny, it doesn’t really look like that?
Until the West sobers up and wakes up from its daydreaming and navel-gazing, we place our hope in the drone weapon and Budanov.
A sufficient number of drones makes a difference and Budanov’s havoc in Russia can absolutely win the war if he gets completely free hands, which we now hope the West no longer interferes with or alternatively that Ukraine chooses to ignore the West.
However, it says a lot about the situation that hope is placed on Budanov’s swarms of saboteurs.
Zelensky did ask for the US’s views on letting Zalizhny go, so the umbilical cord is obviously not completely cut yet.
There is another sad aspect to discuss, all colonized indigenous peoples in Russia see Ukraine as superheroes and there is quite a bit of simmering everywhere, below from Tatarstan for example.
https://x.com/golub/status/1756220166466048344?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
But if Putin manages to get his cheat-win and “punishes” Ukraine (through ethnic cleansing), it serves as air conditioning for all other liberation fronts and Putin can reconnect his grip on the colonies.
Then Putin can calmly continue with his empire dreams and those who take over after Putin shoulder the mantle – the West’s Chamberlain moment went badly then.
Now that won’t happen but it’s the risk the West chooses to accept – and in times when decolonization is the height of fashion, they passively contribute to colonization and facilitate the crime which should make every human rights organization go bananas.
But not everything is black, the Tucker – Putin interview was fantastic where Putin mocks Tucker as a CIA reject, commits a crime (the law on “rehabilitation of Nazism”) which has now been reported, and generally says completely wrong things during two hours. According to Erik14 in yesterday’s legendary night shift, dissatisfaction is widespread in the Russian leadership and it is reinforced by the fact that all media platforms discuss it negatively and think Tucker was an id1ot.
If Tucker feels compelled to go on the defense it would be somewhat epic, presumably they are working hard on that right now 😀
Then Erik14 posted that on some front RU is short on drones which was interesting at a time when Ukraine is supposed to build a million in 2024.
There are also Indian 155mm shells in Ukraine now which partly signals how India views this conflict and that they actively support when the West are the friends who betray.
https://x.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1756189393214189998?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Now to the subject of wild speculation but if the USA does not sort out its domestic political sandbox soon, new alliances will probably form?
The EU seems to have managed to gather under the banner somewhat now which is nice to see. As someone interested in history I have to remind how it looked in 1914 and 1939 – progress has been made with the EU.
Above all, the country that started two world wars has gotten it right and the French never deny themselves either but at least do something even if they call reconnaissance vehicles tanks and send so little that it is almost embarrassing.
If India stands on Ukraine’s side in the conflict and if China helps to de-escalate, there is a chance that the EU – India – China reasonably strengthen relations?
I see no downside to that for the EU but I see a downside for the USA.
Ukraine will contribute a lot to the EU and when the war is over, Kaliningrad a demilitarized zone and the Belarus population has risen, the line with bulwarks against the barbarians will be considerably more manageable – we will get there provided the West does not completely lose its way here.
Export – import goes both ways and if the EU then realizes that Africa is the world’s greatest opportunity and a win-win, we are heading towards quite bright 40 years ahead actually.
I understand why the post-war period became a time of everything-better because the gears started turning in the West and it takes a long time for them to brake.
But first a little hollow-eyed hunchbacked despot in a bunker shall dangle in a gas station deep-marinated in gasoline and lots of colonized indigenous peoples regain their statutory freedom but 2024 is the year when everything goes wrong for him 😀