11:40 – Johan No.1
Oh my god, the sanctions. The shadow fleet is running shuttle traffic to all Russian ports and smuggling dirty oil right under the West’s eyes.
Exports to Russia have kind of increased rather than decreased but have found new routes.
The oligarchs and their families can continue their comfortable lifestyle in the West with minor changes; in some cases, maybe the oligarch himself is not allowed to travel, but children and wives can continue living like gods on blood money.
Ukraine could free up 120,000 soldiers if they didn’t have to guard the border against Belarus, according to their own statements.
11:59 – MatsExtrude
You may well be right that time is running out for Ukraine if they don’t achieve successes soon. Risk that they lose the will to resist and have difficulty recruiting. There have been some hanging heads for a while, and even though morale rose after the US decision, possibly bigger setbacks/lack of successes could break many. Then there is a risk of falling into a downward spiral that is hard to stop.
It is important that the West hurries to assist with everything possible as quickly as possible!
But they have been doing that since the war started, and it is frustrating that those who decide on it don’t understand that…
Regarding ATACMS, Taurus, and Storm Shadows, I suspect one reason for reluctance may be that it has been assessed that there are other things that give more bang for the buck. They cost around 10 million each, so you can understand that in that case.
Especially as there may be fear that Russian air defenses can manage to take down, for example, ATACMS.
With those costs, it is important to find targets worth using them on, but that is not a problem: bridges, larger ammunition depots, air defenses, etc. Maybe, for example, the US has not previously assessed it as worth it but has come to better thoughts.
Of course, the eel seems mostly afraid of getting the Russian bear after it, that coward.
16:25 – Johan No.1
The eel probably had a plan for normalized relations with Russia and to restart its exports there again.
I think Ukraine is retreating a bit everywhere right now on deepstate 😐
07:53 – Johan No.1
New attack on refineries
https://x.com/friaukraina/status/1784069733764989353?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
11:09 – Johan No.1
The legend Sullivan, the man who gave pin-thin a face, has generously confirmed that ATACMS is in new production, which should make deliveries endless and over time.
I recall that GDLSB (the glidebomb) is also newly produced, so they will also come endlessly and over time.
Storm Shadow is apparently being newly produced according to Wikipedia, and the manufacturer of Taurus has confirmed that they can produce large quantities of Taurus quickly.
Considering that ATACMS and GLDSB are newly produced and are to be sent to Ukraine but not Taurus, one might suspect delay tactics from the steel eel?
Why haven’t the UK and France already placed a bulk order for Storm Shadow?
All countries constantly claim that they cannot empty their reserve stocks when the materials can be newly produced…
I saw that I am sometimes perceived as a bit too harsh in personal assessments and that I change my mind. To be very clear – all stalling for over two years should be punishable, but when someone finally turns under the gallows, credit is due, right? Sullivan, Macron, Scholz et al. have long opposed the only reasonable outcome of this war – a free Ukraine. Their reasons are not always crystal clear, but that Scholz is still dragging his feet on Taurus is spectacular, though I understand he has good support in the SPD for this line.
The upcoming attack on Crimea is interesting, I think.
The peninsula has a short land bridge to occupied territory in Ukraine and the Kerch Bridge.
The peninsula has proven completely unable to defend itself against missiles or ATACMS.
Every base, barracks, staff, or depot is already logged and ready.
In the first phase, one needs to control the bridge; yes, you can leave a retreat route open, but you don’t want reinforcements to get into Crimea.
I believe long-range tungsten ATACMS solves that. The bridge is not cut, but everything that moves on the bridge within a certain area is taken out, and eventually, the bridge is full of destroyed vehicles and blocked.
The bridge can be taken down when Ukraine wants to take down the bridge – we should be clear about that.
After that, you need to control the land bridge down to Crimea; I think you can force Russian reinforcements to take the two western roads because in other places it seems possible to blow up bridges or mine effectively.
Then you can either risk a bit too much and try to conduct fire raids or keep the roads under fire with all indirect capabilities and area mining.
Denying Russian reinforcements access to Crimea from the north is not unreasonable with the typhoon of indirect capabilities Ukraine now has.
Probably combined with an attack on the Dnieper front and the southern front so the number of graspable units becomes minimal.
Down in Crimea, there are apparently around 12,000 soldiers of all categories exposed to drone, HIMARS, and missile attacks for a few weeks and are worn out and grumpy.
The Marine Corps is 8,000 strong and has amphibious warfare capabilities. There are SOF capabilities like combat divers in the hundreds, and they have helicopters for air deployment of airborne units – all are absolute elite units.
Crimea is simply done for, but we already knew that.
All attempts to reinforce or maintain the sea route will end in sinking. Consider that during unloading, a ship must stay many hours in one place, and Ukraine’s “Uber for artillery” has a few minutes reaction time.
Western signals intelligence and AWACS will be out on international waters helping, and all attempts by the Russian navy to leave Novorossiysk will end in sinking.
It can only end one way when Ukraine starts 😀
According to the grand campaign plan, Ukraine is supposed to achieve a violent breakthrough at the southern front in some attack vector and then work towards plugging the land bridge to Crimea. Then they turn the tanks northeast and push in that direction instead.
An alternative that was not on the planning table when the genius behind the grand campaign plan put it together and WhatsApped it to Budanov was amphibious warfare, but that equipment has now been delivered in large quantities. There is such a high capability for amphibious warfare or landings that it can make a difference. A landing with jet skis is not as violent as about thirty Combat Boat 90s.
Thus, there is a fallback to retake Crimea now that could work. The alternative for Russia is to now send down 50,000 extra to Crimea, but then it becomes weakened at the southern front instead.
However they do it, it ends in violent death.
With what is now being delivered – do you remember when HIMARS came in 2022 or pre-battle preparations before the spring offensive 2023?
Ukraine now has magnitudes more ammunition and longer range than then, which should give magnitudes more death to trench-Russians.
So far, they have taken out about 50 aircraft and AH-64s with 30-40 ATACMS, so with the 100 now delivered, can we expect maybe a few hundred more aircraft?
There are hundreds of Storm Shadows left, and GLDSB is delivered continuously.
Then there will be thousands of JDAMs to the fronts and millions of shells for all caliber artillery for front-line pre-battle preparation.
This pre-battle preparation will make 2022 and 2023 look like a fun outing in comparison, I am quite sure of that.
Everything within Ukraine’s land border can be reached, and against bases and airbases outside Ukraine’s land border, there will be drone swarms like the 60 against the airbase a few weeks ago – Ukraine claims to have thousands of drones for that purpose.
Why do you think the Russians have increased the signing bonus to 9,000 USD for those who sign contracts for the war?
They had an inexhaustible personnel reserve and could go on forever according to those who knew their stuff – so why increase salaries then?
The truth is, of course, that fewer and fewer want to be killed in Ukraine, so they have to increase the pull factor with more pay.
According to the discussion we had in January 2023, Russia cannot carry out a general mobilization for the simple reason that a million angry Russians with weapons is a bigger threat to the large-size masked oligarch than to Ukraine. The security forces fear only one thing – popular revolution.
Now this mobilization was dangled before us again, but it turned into another nothing-burger. Putin is trying to recruit internationally from Africa and Asia, he is trying to recruit from everywhere – prisons and the bottom layer, but it is becoming increasingly difficult.
It’s not exactly how you build up the Red Army, I think, but rather a wandering begging camp.
But do we hear anything about it at all in the media?
I only hear about Ukraine’s personnel shortage, which I personally don’t think is a huge shortage, but we’ll see.
Regarding the support, enough is probably now being delivered, and the question one should then ask is – why didn’t Ukraine get this before autumn 2022 or the spring offensive 2023?
It can only be seen as an enormous failure from the West, but better late than never, as they say. Do you remember during 2023 how everyone discussed that absolutely nothing was available? Now in 2024, there is plenty. It exists because during the winter they started sending unit-equipped materiel and from reserve stocks.
Probably Russian subversive activity has been in full swing to ensure that the support does not arrive. A very real problem has been that each country’s Chief of Defense has demanded that all equipment stays within the country, and then many countries have placed orders for new equipment so there was nothing even to order for Ukraine. This is a consequence of the job description for each country’s Chief of Defense and the changed threat picture, but the West should have addressed this directly. Spain and Portugal should only be interested in the integrity of the perimeter defense together with the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
Then I am quite puzzled that Storm Shadow and Taurus are not being mass-produced right now, but maybe it is happening quietly, who knows.
Missiles for the Armed Forces seem to be churned out from the production lines as many as they can manage.
If you put on your Ukraine hat for a second, the spring offensive 2023 would be the time when the West stopped micromanaging Ukraine in the wrong direction. They believed in themselves after autumn 2022 (despite some sabotage from NATO officers) and had promises of a lot of support.
According to Zelensky, there was a lack of equipment for four brigades and, of course, no aircraft.
Quite early on, we caught in the thread that AH-64 and CAS were a problem for Ukrainian attackers. Ukraine then struck some air bases, but the problem remained during the offensive, and then the use of the hated FAB bombs increased.
It is now clear that NATO officers forced the attack targets and that NATO doctrine was to be followed without air superiority, and after three weeks Zalizhny changed this in panic.
Then Khakovka was blown up just as Ukraine intended to cross the Dnieper, as I have understood in hindsight.
According to reports, it was the 300,000 shells from South Korea that made the spring offensive possible.
Then a collective West stopped sending equipment to Ukraine – nothing.
The Russians’ Maidan 3 influence operation was running at full speed, and there were rumors of negotiations, that the West would give up, and a bit more, as well as the strategic communication from the West crashing again.
Sirsky cleared out the entire general staff and many brigade commanders after Zalizhny resigned, and rumors were buzzing.
A mobilization plan was rolled out that was unpopular.
But Budanov pushed on with a new target – the refineries.
Then a collective West bursts out in a resounding “Njet” all except Macron.
To me, this whole chain of events looks extremely demoralizing, and Zelensky and Sirsky deserve respect, but it is the Ukrainian infantry that counts – if they lose heart, things go downhill fast.
Then the Armed Forces ran out of missiles and Russia began hitting high-value targets in Ukraine, GRU headquarters, rumors of NATO officers’ staffs, depots, factories, and power supply.
They have now fought all autumn and spring with acute ammunition shortages, and the reason it is going backward can probably partly be spelled that the infantry has lost heart.
For those of you who think this can drag on for several more years, I don’t believe it for a second. For Zelensky to succeed in keeping the country going, they need good news very soon.
All deliveries are good news, and Macron has been significant in his communication.
Step two should be that Ukraine launches a huge bombing campaign both near the front and deep behind enemy lines and is open about what is being taken out – that could probably bring back the joy of fighting to the shooters.
Then they need to start retaking terrain so the country feels it is going in the right direction again.
This offensive probably needs to hold over time until the war is won, even if it drags into 2025, because I don’t think the country can handle another change of initiative and starting to retreat again.
For it to succeed, this year’s pre-attack strikes need to be astronomical, and they need to hit staging areas, transport hubs, training camps in Russia, ammunition depots, fuel depots, and so on to deny Putin the ability to scrape together the next strategic reserve to throw against Ukraine.
Now we are also waiting for the 18 billion euros in equipment that Scholz promised but has not yet delivered. A long list always looks impressive, but when it takes several years to deliver, it may be a bit misleading.