13:22 – MatsExtrude
Thanks!
Militarily, I believe Ukraine can continue for several years if the West continues its support.
However, there is a risk that the whole society loses the will to fight as more and more of the energy supply is knocked out.
Can they survive another winter?
I think they need some form of major success this year for them to endure. Maybe not a decisive one but at least something that can keep hope alive.
10:55 – Johan No.1
The monthly report for Russian losses is Monday but we can already see lots of exciting records,
Artillery and Special Forces are all-time high, and soft vehicles and air defense are the second highest ever – after 2.5 years of war.
IFVs had an upward curve but plummeted in June 2024 despite offensive operations, tanks were hard to interpret much from.
I continue to push my thesis that RU is critically short on armor, so we’ll see how it goes, T55 is as good a sign as any I think 😀
Air defense is interesting because we can see the same pattern as before the spring offensive 2023 and how UA focuses on knocking out air defense.
Artillery, specials, and soft vehicles are only increasing which probably means Ukraine’s capabilities to knock them out are also increasing.
IFVs have been rising until this month and tanks are a bit up and down but on a higher level than the first half of the war.
Generally, looking at losses, RU has taken significantly higher losses since spring 2023 than before. Some weapon systems had high losses in the first months though.
But instead of it being shooting with near-PVs and Molotov cocktails, it is indirect capabilities that knock out the most at a proper distance from the targets – Ukrainian losses are going down and Russian losses are going up over time – good for UA and very bad for Putin.
What do you see?
I see fun with tape…
However, I don’t know when the video was taken and the account does not post chronologically but whatever suits, so I don’t dare to comment on it yet at all.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kw2ga5ebqt25
That the war should be decided in 2024 means the big brushstrokes must be painted. I don’t believe for a second that the West or Ukraine can handle a multi-year war anymore.
Right now today, Farage, Le Pen, and Trump are advancing and Zelensky is probably starting to be challenged in the country by other presidential candidates. Conflicts between groups are also increasing in the West and will only escalate.
North Korea is starting to smell morning air, I..el is about to enter Liban@n, in Africa there are a couple of emerging conflicts, and in Bolivia there was a failed military coup – global increase simply.
But Russia is absolutely not doing well with how the war is going now. If it were to go into low gear, they could handle it and at the same time conduct subversive activities and continue to escalate globally.
Something has to happen, it could be the Azov push, the northern front, or northern Luhansk for example, all of which look promising.
A failed major offensive again and UA is probably forced to the negotiating table because I don’t think Zelensky can handle more internally.
A successful offensive and RU will come to better thoughts in one of the three ways we discussed the other day.
Pretty clear that the West wants to focus on Crimea this year, several statements about that, and we can only hope that it will be enough, otherwise the West (again) has thought wrong. I think the northern front has looked like an open goal that is slowly starting to close again.
A year-long ammunition shortage almost goes down in history as one of Putin’s biggest mistakes; he still thinks he has a good poker hand because he managed to stop the ammunition in 2023. His latest statement is that he is satisfied with Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia. He doesn’t even mention Crimea because he assumes he will keep the area.
This is how badly off it is that the West stopped sending air defense missiles to Ukraine 😐
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kvz2lcitv523
The condition of the RU economy, military, and the country in general is probably worse than we are led to believe – Lex Soviet and that they lie about everything.
Russia has already lost the strategic bombing war since early 2024 and their entire technical weapons platform is subpar even against old Western materiel – they are completely outclassed.
And if the refineries had been running at 100%, UA wouldn’t have focused on oil depots and war industry – then they would have continued as in January – March this year.
RU seems to have almost handed over the Avdiivka front to DPR/LPR units.
Bakhmut is a beautiful mosaic of all kinds of units, communication must be very difficult. In front of Chasiv Yar it is Spetsnaz and VDV that are taking hits.
South of Donetsk it is RU units again so the intersection apparently goes south of Donetsk.
The southern front seems to have weakened marginally?
Wasn’t there someone pushing the line that there would never be an offensive down from Kharkiv, if I remember correctly?
This one is interesting because the 27th MRD is supposed to be based near Avdiivka and apparently is taking hits.
https://x.com/moklasen/status/1806582954417611075?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
This was the link about Nikki Haley that should have been included yesterday.
https://x.com/nikkihaley/status/1806524623913123859?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Don’t be fooled that Trump supports Europe or UA, here he complains that Zelensky is the smartest thief and always leaves the USA with 60 billion of their dollars. Trump is not our friend.
https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1806505228340228295?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And here Trump knew that Putin’s dream was to invade Ukraine 😲
https://x.com/matt_vandyke/status/1806757014913126648?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Some caution on this one but do you remember the Russian plane a few days ago that flew to the USA?
Could it have been this one and for this purpose?
https://x.com/intelcrab/status/1806799030090874935?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
We have heard the same talking points from politicians in Sweden about how much the Ukraine war costs and they are the best budget watchdogs – and then you read that hundreds of billions are stolen every year in economic crimes. The budget obsession only applies to Ukraine and because it benefits Russia. Then you can think that hundreds of billions is quite a lot and that control is a bit too lax but then it becomes domestic politics that makes the tolerant intolerant so we refrain from that.
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/ekobrottsmyndigheten-kraver-skarpta-lagar-for-grova-ekobrott
The unrest in Kenya is due to Chinese loans – many countries in Africa are in that trap if anyone thought IMF was el diablo itself.
https://x.com/markrob84/status/1806298505993924782?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Seems like someone finally made a good proposal, UAE and Egypt will handle the guard duty in G..za, lost the link carelessly.
In the country where “quantity is a quality in itself” as we often hear, practically all new citizens go straight into the military.
https://x.com/noelreports/status/1806310322027839687?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Already in January 2023 we rang the bell that Putin cannot mobilize and now he apparently has difficulty getting volunteers so they have to recruit a bit broader like in Mali and CAR to get the right specialist skills.
That tap will also be shut off quite soon because the rumor goes about what death sentence this reasonably is now.
Quite a few in the thread were pushing the line that voluntary recruitment in Russia was going well so they didn’t need to mobilize, we see it – salaries and signing bonuses are up 10 times and they are recruiting heavily from developing countries.
The reason Putin cannot mobilize a larger number in Muscovite Russia is that one million men under arms is a bigger threat to the Siloviki than it is to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has a willing personnel reserve of 1.5 million ready to kill Russians and has mobilized a few hundred thousand during 2024.
Unfortunately, I’m not keeping track of oil depots but apparently 6 have been targeted in a month, lost the link.
The lionesses
https://x.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1806322333231026626
The mech lions
https://x.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1806710462169469401?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And here you have the “Russian volunteer corps” volunteer unit with upgraded BTR-70s. This is probably the program that the EU and UA are running where they put new weapon stations on older vehicles like BTR and BMP as we have discussed a few times.
So even a Russian volunteer battalion is now mechanized 👍💥
https://x.com/praisethesteph/status/1806815251058553277?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Now basically everything is mechanized if even the volunteer battalions have fragmentation protection?
The territorials are also partly mechanized and then they have their own SOF and reconnaissance units.
Over 100 maneuver brigades mechanized and with special forces.
And Putin is becoming more and more isolated
https://x.com/arturrehi/status/1806762305079624007?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Which in itself does not prevent him from actively carrying out sabotage in the West, which the West is almost completely silent about.
https://x.com/oplatsen/status/1806792867320672400?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
But above all, more and more RU brigades on the maps are territorial, which are probably like a rifle battalion roughly without fragmentation protection or tanks.
Battalions of T55 have been formed which means the main armament is T55.
So while UA’s capability is greatly increasing, RU’s capability is sharply declining.
The strategic bombing war is hopelessly lost.
The back is already broken on RU artillery.
With new air defense and then the delayed top-tier aircraft, RU air superiority will be killed off.
But already today UA is dropping its JDAMS at the northern front and at the southern front.
UA has both quantity and quality on its side but cannot fully exploit it until Russian CAS and Ahkp are denied the fronts (I guess).
The drone weapon is starting to swing over into UA dominance both with EW and anti-drone drones and then their own drones that are EW resistant.
Looks good everywhere and the bars should be optimized for UA victory going forward – positive – positive.
We already see offensive operations today and just like 2023, it will probably be higher intensity until it’s hard to call it reconnaissance battles anymore. At least I’m watching for mech inside the Russian side at the northern front or amphibious fighting over at the Dnieper because that would signal an increased level of ambition.