12:12 – Johan No.1
All of you who criticize France and think I am too positive about the fashion icon whose hairstyle makes any 60-year-old weak in the knees – France has delivered hundreds of Scalp and their version of JDAMS so this statement is significant.
It is significant because it will get rid of the FAB bomb droppers!
And Scholz, whom I usually get scolded for because he wears his suit like a teenager at his first funeral and has a hairstyle that makes the world’s combined hairdressers burst into tears, has not even delivered Taurus yet.
12:18 – Johan No.1
Note that I omit the gender of the 60-year-old, have realized that it is easier than writing all the identities.
12:40 – MatsExtrude
👍
Yes, it feels significantly more positive now that the material and unnecessary restrictions are starting to ease.
Besides, you can see signs that the Russians are having problems when T-54s, horses, and caged motorcycles appear.😄
I believe a larger offensive might become relevant when the F-16s are in place and they can stop the FAB band. The end of summer or beginning of autumn seems reasonable.
14:42 – Johan No.1
Yes, and there are still those who claim they are not severely short on armor – what more do they need to see on film, combat minks?
09:31 – Johan No.1
During the Cold War, RU probably counted on needing 1:10 when the West thought 1:3 – 1:4 was enough?
Have you just mathematically proven that the Russians instinctively gambled right?
I agree with that 😀
But I want to emphasize that my optimism (or pessimism) is based on statistical probability even though I am nowhere near able to do a calculation like you do Jari, hats off, I usually take the number of mopeds and golf carts and divide by two.
Now that they got cages on the mopeds, I am still wondering what the factor will be.
12:02 – Johan No.1
As usual, Ukraine shot down most of the missiles and drones that Russia launched in a surprisingly large operation, over 80% were shot down.
At the same time, Ukraine is knocking out Russian air defenses and can freely strike high-value Russian targets up to 2000 km inside Russian territory.
If there is anything that signals a catastrophic loss, it is precisely this – a total Russian inability to protect itself against drone and missile weapons, and a capability they can never acquire because their entire technical platform is substandard. Regarding the strategic bombings, Russia has already spectacularly lost since the turn of the year at least, and we have probably already established that in the thread.
You all understand that Budanov can put his Grom 2 in the Kremlin anytime he wants, but he has his reasons not to do so, whatever they may be.
I wonder if the general perception that Ukraine cannot launch an offensive before 2025, which everyone was so certain about all winter, is slowly starting to change here 🤣
We in the thread have been discussing Ukraine’s next offensive since January and have held the view that the advanced aircraft is the critical line and that it will be a mechanized offensive.
I should add here that since we also now know that much of the promised weapons and ammunition are not arriving as we guessed they would within a reasonable time, that is probably also a factor. Apparently, the EU has only delivered 34% of the promised materiel according to Surtrutn yesterday
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
And 10 Leo 1 tanks that were promised in January 2023 arrived only in May 2024 from Germany according to Badaboom yesterday.
For Ukraine to carry out its next major offensive, FAB bombers need to be denied access and they need ammunition and fragmentation protection.
That Ukraine can move mechanized forces up at the northern front is a very good sign, and that they have expanded the bridgehead at the Dnieper as well.
There has been a long discussion about the drone weapon making all mechanized forces unworkable so it would turn into WW1-style warfare according to one side, while the other side argued that to win the war, territory must be retaken and to retake territory mechanized combat is needed, so that is what we will see in the next offensive. Now things are rolling at the northern front, and that should be the hardest place, so the assumption that mobility is still feasible is starting to be supported by what it looks like on the ground around Kharkiv.
The pessimists’ argument was that mobile warfare is impossible so it will be trench warfare and that Ukraine was low on manpower and that an offensive could only happen in 2025 or something?
The positive, life-affirming half of the plan believed they had a strategic offensive reserve and that it would be mechanized combat as soon as materiel and ammunition arrive, whenever that may be…
Right now, Ukraine has completely regained the initiative at the northern front and in a first escalation HIMARS has for the first time been used against Russians in a pit on the Ukrainian side of the border, possibly also against targets on the Russian side, which is still Twitter rumors but hopefully will be confirmed during the day with intense footage.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1796672970892382589?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Close-front_preemptive_strikes_on_rear_functions is what someone usually writes.
Since all the major countries including the USA have now accepted operations on Russian soil, naturally the next escalation will be that Ukraine massively deploys HIMARS (and others!) against targets on the Russian side of the northern border, up to 100 km is probably allowed if I have deciphered the US requirements correctly here but it is not the easiest, I wonder if they themselves are fully clear on what is permitted…
Those of you who have forsaken work for several years just like me and remember autumn 2022 when HIMARS arrived at the fronts, there were for a couple of months hundreds of targets before RU moved everything beyond HIMARS range.
How do you think it looks just inside the Russian side of the northern border that has been peaceful for 2.5 years 🤣
It will probably be an absolutely epic preemptive strike on headquarters, billets, staging areas, ammunition depots and fuel depots before the Russians have moved everything north.
And then Ukraine can, if they want (and unfortunately mostly ARE ALLOWED), roll into the northern Oblasts since they now have a 3:1 numerical superiority and more mechanized forces.
It would be, as someone usually writes in the thread (late into the night?) – straight up into Putin’s Moomin valley and extremely difficult to handle.
We will of course see amphibious operations this year if the boats arrive because Ukraine is still striving to widen the bridgehead down at the Dnieper.
Something that really signals offensive operations is that Ukraine is begging on its knees to strike targets inside Russia with Western weapons and is getting lots of mine-clearing equipment, fragmentation protection and amphibious capability.
This year they are completely silent, we know that, but the initiative having shifted to Ukraine at the northern front speaks for itself about what is about to happen here.
Simply put, one could say that Ukraine is currently positioned to strike on both flanks if they so desire.
If you remember the big campaign plan, Bakhmut was a flytrap and now Avdiivka is also included, which still seems to be focus areas for RU besides Kharkiv, which was an attempt to create a buffer zone that failed spectacularly and gave Ukraine an opportunity which they have not missed so far in the war.
The northern front probably came in a later revision as a diversion and one can suspect that something will happen in Belarus.
Subversive activities deep inside with unrest in the republics should also come.
And cutting the land bridge to Crimea is a first attack objective.
After that, Crimea would be isolated, which is now being done with attacks on ferry traffic, and all brigades would be turned east instead.
Crimea is automatically impossible to hold over time.
Alternatively, they want to try to achieve a decisive outcome by retaking Crimea as quickly as possible, there are good reasons to believe that the Azov thrust would be enough to end the war.
There is little reason to wait until 2025 but the weapons on the critical line determine the entire timeline.
The West still controls this year’s activities by turning on or tightening the materiel tap but it is far from the same situation as 2023.
-First, Ukraine tried a diversion at the northern front which the West did not allow so RU did not have to move troops there.
-Then they started a campaign against refineries and oil depots which the West also said no to.
-After that, the West did not deliver advanced aircraft so RU attack helicopters and aircraft hit Ukraine’s mechanized forces hard.
-NATO demanded that Ukraine attack down through the most heavily defended part of the entire front with NATO doctrine and Zalizhny probably saved the country by panicking and changing tactics as soon as he could.
-RU blew up Khakovka and delayed crossing the Dnieper.
-The year before, NATO denied Zalizhny the ability to carry out the Azov thrust when RU was at its low point before mobilization.
I think it looks different this year – UA has 38,000 up at the northern front and they can now fire into Russian territory. It is a battle group that can start conducting offensive operations into Russia if they mainly get the chance.
The West is now delivering the equipment needed for continued barbaric pounding.
They have received endless mine-clearing equipment and also 155mm cluster shells, ATACMS, JDAMS, and Storm Shadow. All are good for knocking out fortifications and raining tungsten over defenses in open trench systems.
In 2023, Ukraine did not have much of this – it was 300,000 155mm shells from South Korea that enabled the spring offensive.
The bridgehead at the Dnieper is intact.
Ukraine has a strategic reserve of 13 brigades (they actually have more) and a large number of maneuver brigades have excellent work experience, have completed all necessary self-actualization courses, and also have the right specialist competence (hits on Russian dugouts sticking their heads over the trench edge) for the job.
When the next offensive will come, only Ukraine knows (this time) and the question is if even they know since it is Western deliveries that control it, I am awaiting F-16 units to be deployed.
But we can be confident that it will come, and then it will be against infantry in golf carts and T54s that Ukraine’s mechanized combat will wash over. Along with drone-protected motorcycle shooting, see below.
I know the pessimists see this as impossible and that everyone has written off an offensive this year, but things are moving again in the undergrowth, it is obvious. It will also not become a wet blanket of the drone weapon that makes movement impossible – it is some kind of dream that everything will lock up which simply has no basis in reality.
The question is also how long Putin et al. will hold out – I stand by that after a really bad battlefield news it is game over. The Azov strike is one, but an invasion of Russia comes in as a close second and a full popular revolution in Belarus in third place.
The purge in the last month indicates that there is unrest in the army and popular generals were arrested.
1st and 2nd AC from occupied areas likely have very low morale and will throw in the towel when things look too bleak.
Here you have two trains with T55S and P91, of which the P91 film is being discussed whether it is correct or not. I am actually wondering if a large amount of the equipment promised early 2023 is only starting to arrive now?
https://x.com/albafella1/status/1796820531255058932?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
https://x.com/simpatico771/status/1796627140336632201?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then it got a bit confusing with MRF in our discussion and I finally did not understand what we were discussing when you completely agreed with Rikkitikitavi who wrote exactly what I have argued and then that I was stating the obvious because you thought exactly as I wrote but I think I have managed to isolate an important opinion you have,
“However, we differ on the point that I lack your omnipotent conviction that there has never been any risk of (life)dangerous escalation from the Russian side and that I, without either expert knowledge on the subject or access to the intelligence information that NATO countries’ intelligence services and high military and political leaders have access to, still understand this better than all those who want to hold back.”
My first question is how Russia could escalate dangerously, with what?
For example, LW has not been kind in its criticism of Russian capability even before the war, so what we have seen over 2.5 years was generally known already if one bothered to google.
Then I think Jario’s post from the Finnish analyst from a country that really knows Russia intimately was worth reading – they only understand strength and are motivated to more violence by submissiveness.
And the last must be that the West is not an all-seeing god that always does right, in global conflicts the West has always dragged its feet and how Europe handled the Yugoslav war was downright shameful.
And not least, the US support package had to be voted through by Congress so the 6 months of delay had nothing to do with any plan, it was delayed by Mike Johnson et al.
So according to you, the strategy would have been something like this: do very little for 2.5 years, risk Ukraine losing the war but take that risk and finally after 2.5 years decide that Russia shall have its important infrastructure completely destroyed and lose on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Why couldn’t that have been done directly then?
What I see from China is that they are becoming bolder in their statements the longer time goes – time is not on the West’s side.
https://x.com/zlatti_71/status/1796798877120524695?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
The last must actually be this – Ukraine has sunk the Black Sea fleet, knocked out Russia’s refining capability, recaptured 50% of conquered land, Storm Shadow, ATACMS have arrived and inflict life-threatening damage on the Russian army.
When did you think Russia would escalate dangerously if that was not enough to make them angry and escalate?
When the West sends more equipment?
The only reasonable assumption must be that Russia will not escalate because they cannot escalate more, they have used their entire conventional arsenal and they know that the probability of the West shooting down their nuclear-armed missiles is about 95%.
And that when they have fired a nuclear weapon, they cannot defend themselves at all against the West’s conventional missiles which can strike targets anywhere across Russia.
Ukraine showed this to the West already during 2023…
I always find it fun when the thread becomes positive again because it is hard to argue what will happen alone when everyone becomes pessimists. The signs are there all the time and it is perfectly possible to put together a reasonable puzzle but the whole mood becomes immediately that nothing works and that earliest 2025 something will happen.
Ukraine has just made a mess of one of the bigger Russian offensives in 2024 and has a good starting position at the northern front.
The last straw for the pessimists – the Russians have now come up with drone cages on motorcycles so motorcycle shooting is absolutely the new drone-secured black that will win the war for them 🤣
A moped gang from any smaller town in Sweden, simply.
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1796991124487242237?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w