Ukraine daily update November 5th 202

I have been a bit absent as I am working on some longer posts that you will greatly enjoy, but also trying to determine what is happening on the fronts – there is no point in launching a world-leading analytical masterpiece like Budanov just to have it torn apart and burned up the following week.

The question now is whether Ukraine will start/has started a broader offensive or if it is still local counteroffensives.

In the northeast of Pokrovsk, UA counteroffensive has been named “Dobrophilia” and has been ongoing for over a month. It involves qualified units and RU is also carrying out counterattacks in the area. They have not exactly overrun the Russian defense, even though it is definitely heading in the right direction.

I dare not speculate on the number of RU brigades that have fought there, but it has been chaotic and deadly for both sides – more so for RU. Many of the DPR brigades were wiped out there.

In Pokrovsk, GUR has attacked to stabilize the situation, and even airborne operations have been used – this is something we have long discussed that UA has the capability for.

It’s a bit different from the Russian sniping and crawling, isn’t it, to swoop in on a helicopter; they must be extremely jealous as they hobble along in the mud 😄

Previous counterattacks in Kupiansk failed, but now the telegram channels are buzzing with news of further counterattacks, and Zelensky or Sirsky has announced that there will be further counterattacks in both Pokrovsk and Kupiansk.

When Ukraine attacked in Kursk, it was preceded by weeks of mine clearance, but I guess there is much less fieldwork in these areas – and they are the most urgent ones.

You know, if you’ve read the posts, that Ukraine has a strategic offensive reserve.

You also know that both sides are holding back their mechanized units.

Previously, Russia, through China’s assistance, has sorted out its digital battlefield and kill chain, which was very unfortunate – it’s a 20-30km wide area at the fronts that is directly unattractive to linger in.

The Russian ground forces are in the same chaos as before, only with fewer mechanized units lying in wait.

The mechanized assaults carried out by RU recently always end in a lot of casualties – no real increase in capability there at all.

We know that Ukraine has received a lot of heavy vehicles, more aircraft, its own drone weapons, plenty of mine clearance equipment, night vision devices, and the ability for amphibious warfare and airborne operations.

Especially in night combat, Ukraine is likely to excel since the Russian ground forces almost entirely lack that capability.

Yes, China has the digital battlefield, but not the ground forces.

Now UA has anti-drone drones out in various forms, the example may not be optimal, but they are available now.

Of course, the next step in the constant whack-a-mole game is anti-drone drones. If UA can gain an advantage in that for a few months, they will be able to leverage their significantly better ground forces capability to bring about change.

So far, the counterattacks have been painful for UA – they are also taking losses.

RU is attacking on all fronts, everywhere, simultaneously.

All RU front commanders seem to have been ordered to go on the offensive, and there is fighting on the northern front, northern Luhansk, Donetsk front (darkest Donbass), on the southern front. You may remember that I mentioned RU crossing the Dnieper, which no one wanted to acknowledge; you should take note of what is being written and not start questioning everything just because others are not writing about it yet 😄

RU has weakened at the Dnieper front where all task forces have been moved to the Pokrovsk area, with only the 98th AD remaining, but then only two brigades from what I can see.

The Dnieper has never been weaker than it is now since the fall of 2022 when the USA prevented Zalihzny from winning the entire war.

Crimea has already been prepped – the LV down there are endangered species.

Ukraine always has a plan for an offensive, they had it in the fall of 2024 as well, but Trump sabotaged it just as Biden sabotaged everything before that.

Has Ukraine stopped listening to the USA and stopped sharing battle plans with its allies – we sincerely hope so.

RU is attacking everywhere, which means they are consuming resources like crazy, and Ukraine’s strategic drone warfare is also depleting resources.

What will determine the outcome is whether RU has overextended itself or if our friends UA can shift from being reactive to being proactive.

Currently, a Ranger regiment and GUR are fighting in Pokrovsk, so they have thrown in their best.

These are the most crucial months of the war because if Ukraine repeats the spring offensive of 2023 or RU manages to keep pace and plug the gaps, this war could end in a way that is unattractive to us.

The second step is that as soon as things start going south for the bunker dwarf, he will start screaming for a ceasefire, and Trump will demand it on the spot.

Then it will be crucial for Europe to support Ukraine all the way to the finish line because a ceasefire is the worst thing that could happen, especially if Ukraine has momentum.

However, RU has just announced broadly that they have encircled UA in Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, so it would be a nice blow to Russian morale to hit back hard.

For me, it’s too difficult to see through the fog right now – Ukraine is probably under heavy pressure in both areas, and I guess GUR’s intervention was necessary to stabilize the situation so they wouldn’t end up with a few brigades stuck.

If there are major counterattacks, it could signal that Ukraine is choosing to take the initiative – apparently, RU is starting to smell the diesel engines revving in the forests on the opposite side of the field because they are screaming on Telegram. But they did that last fall too, and nothing happened.

It’s almost a bit scary, but a few hundred thousand Ukrainian riflemen stand between peace in our time and a global conflict – since China has not started and RU has not escalated further, it might still be possible to extinguish this IF Ukraine succeeds.

Especially if the upcoming financial crisis can be directed towards China so they take the big hit and lose interest in waging aggressive wars because they are hungry instead.

What Europe does or doesn’t do here, I would argue, is absolutely crucial now that the USA has backed out – so we actually determine our children’s future in the coming months.

It’s easy to forget that these are soldiers who may have been fighting since 2022 and spend six months at a time in a drone swarm.

It’s truly incredible how resentful the Ukrainian spirit is towards Russia because many wars have ended long before attempting the 10th try to break the back of their much stronger opponent (Russia + China) and only see past setbacks as valuable lessons.

It’s also easy to forget that the Russian team is a mosaic of army commanders doing their best, and the only thing they have been really bad at is quick maneuvers.

Probably the digital battlefield will prove to be weak when there is a lot of movement.

It’s just like with ground troops, it’s easy to log fixed targets and set a FAB in them.

It’s a qualified guess that RU strength is now under their own offensive as everything is predictable.

Then UA has shown the ability to fight with “combined arms warfare” and they have now sorted out the command chain and structure that was their major weakness – that Sirsky would micromanage everything.

Their offensive strategic reserves have also been allocated resources and personnel.

My guess is that it is the night battle that will prove to be UA’s major advantage this time IF they can neutralize China’s digital battlefield.

But it’s a minor hell trying to fight in a drone-saturated area and then fighting in urban areas is the worst.

I thought months ago that the RU attack wedge west of the Oskil River would be overrun without any problems, shooting from the wrong side of a river.

The fact that it hasn’t happened and that GUR has problems in Pokrovsk shows how difficult this new drone environment is to handle.

Because it’s not the snipers or the crawlers that put up violent resistance.

We can consider ourselves lucky if Ukraine takes the sacrifice so we can avoid it because I don’t think we would have done particularly well in this new combat environment – we would have had a much steeper learning curve and our governments would also have had to try to fend off the full Russian subversive activity when brigades are pulverized early in that learning curve.

It would be appropriate if Ukraine could sort this out for us because it seems that we actually can’t get organized unless there’s a crisis – my European self-image is starting to get a bit bruised.

The EU has recently announced that Ukraine is still on track to become full members of the EU, which is welcome.

Putin has at least gone all in, must be incredibly costly in terms of personnel and resources to attack everywhere.

They of course intend to balance it with mobilization but there is a low point somewhere and if what we hear is true, the soldiers at the fronts are not so keen on the Russian defense forces anymore.

Desertions and refusal of orders are examples that abound.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the FSB sniffed out the next attempted palace coup as well, it was out recently.

But if everyone – somewhere and some constituent republics declare war as well, maybe it can work?

But they probably won’t do that unless it looks like Ukraine is winning the war.

As they say, the most important months of the war.