A few thoughts for the day.
"Before I get going there is something more serious I must talk about.
The CIA leaked on purpose to the New York Times the intelligence brief about the GRU being behind the bomb letters in Spain.
We know that there are several Russian groups and agents roaming loose in Europe and the US that are ready to comit terror and sabotage behind the lines.
Several have been arrested, but many more are free and there is a high risk of them acting as things will get more grim for Russia.
Leaking this was a warning to Russia to not act further, but if or when they become active there will be real consequences.
As and when Russia suffers big losses I would caution everyone from visiting government facilities and/or military installations, public spaces will most likely be safe though.
I do not say this to scare anyone, just as a word of caution, this is all that I can say for now.
Punditry and the Stalemate
In the last few weeks there has been a lot of speachifying about there being a stalemate due to both sides being exhausted and out of resources, and that now the war will drag on for yours unless Ukraine receives a lot of more weapons and ammunition.
This is comming from both Pundits and "Experts".
I hope that this is an attempt to pressure politicians to give more weapons to Ukraine to shorten the war, but from a technical standpoint it is not true.
Yes, it is true for Russia, but not at all for Ukraine.
Ukraine has clearly stated that they would wait for spring to perform their next big offensive and that they up until then would do staging and "borstjing" along the frontline.
This has obviously returned the initiative to the Russians, and this is why they have had limited success in Donbass.
It was to be expected.
The reason is that the Ukrainian High Command knew that it would not be possible to operate in the mud. They hoped though for a cold winter to give them opportunities for more limited offensives. And that happened at Kreminna/Svatove.
And Russia did the same at Bakhmut/Soledar and in Zhaporizhzhia.
Being realistic and cautious in wintertime is a good decission, and both Ukraine and Russia has done this.
On top of that Ukraine needed time to gather resources, prepare and be rather when it is time to move forward.
The risk is clear that this stalemate talk will force the Ukrainians to act to soon to not lose support and morale.
I wish people would not spread this narrative.
Punditry and The Ginormous Russian Offensive
I find it hilarious that more western "experts" believe in this than even the Russian General Staff on a cocaine binge.
According to these pundits the Russian army will perform a gigantic spring offensive containing anything from 150 000 to 700 000 new soldiers in endles columns of tanks.
There is at the same time not a shred of evidence that these masses of soldiers exist anywhere.
And even if they did exist there is just not enough time to move them into position, because they are now neither in Ukraine, nor anywhere along the border.
It is here good to remember that it took Russia 6 months to move a quarter of a million men to the border to Ukraine for their first attack 11 months ago.
At the same time we see no tanks, no new artillery, no new nothing being brought in. At least in number that would make any difference at all in a war of this scale.
We also see no new massive mobilisation, just a smaller operation to replace killed soldiers with new canonfodder.
Reality
Russia has 50 000 trained soldiers left that are not in combat today, they are divided between Belarus and Kursk Oblast.
They have limited resources in regards of heavy equipment, around 100 tanks, some 200 BMPs, and a similar number of artillery.
It is for sure an impressive amount, but in a spring offensive that is between 1 and 2 weeks worth of heavy equipment.
And not even remotely close to what is needed to break through the rather impressive Ukrainian lines.
What I do not know is how, where and when they will be put into use.
Will they be sent in wholesale in a larger offensive from the North?
Will they be moved into Russian held parts of Ukraine?
Will they be divided and used as reinforcements on various parts of the frontline to support more limited offensives to gain positions?
I am of the opinion that we can draw conclusions from what Russia is already doing in the form of offensives.
I think we will get more of Bakhmut/Soledar and Zhaporizhzhia.
In other words limited positional gains to gain some sort of momentum to play out against Ukraine in the behind the scenes peace talks.
There is just not enough Russian resources for a big offensive.
But, Russia being Russia they might do something really stupid and squander their limited resources.
It is here important to talk about Gerasimov.
He is portrayed as an idiot by the Pundits, this is far from true though.
He is rather competent, and he has written a rather impressive book on the Russian military doctrine, and he has a fairly good record as a field commander in both Afghanistan and Chechnya.
Having reread his book I think the cautious offensives we are seeing now is his general idea, and that the potential for them have been set up by Surovikin during his 3 months as field commander.
I may obviously be wrong.
It would be good for Ukraine if I was.
Zhaporizhzhia
Even though the offensive in Zhaporizhzhia did not work out, at least so far, it was innovative.
Russian doctrine states that no offensive should be performed without intensive artillery preparations.
Instead Russia just jumped up out of the trenches and went on attack.
This obviously took the Ukrainians completely by surprise, a first as such. It is not easy to surprise them.
In under 4 hours Russia took 7 villages before Ukraine got up and counter-attacked.
And this was only possible due to the large army group they already had there.
Ukraine took back 6 of the 7 villages, the seventh was left alone on purpose since it is an untenable position in a valley with Russia on high ground and Ukraine on the other high ground.
It was only technically under Ukrainian command, but they did not have troops stationed there. Nor does Russia now, but they took it briefly so it is now counted as Russian.
As you know I have harped at the critical lack of heavy equipment in the Russian army, and their lack of artillery shells.
I see this attack as evidence of that, and as a future of the Russian offensives.
With limited artillery shells there was just not enough to perform artillery preparations, so Russia adapted to this new reality.
It is the first time we see Russia truly adapting their MO in the war.
Secondly, we saw about 150 soldiers on fot in each offensive supported by between 3-5 BMPs and at most 1 tank.
I see this as a clear sign of Russia no longer being able to perform large scale mechanized warfare due to lack of heavy equipment.
Their resources are spread to thin to be able to produce a clear tank-fist, without emptying out another place completely giving ground to Ukraine.
In the last 3 days we have seen wave upon wave during daytime, roughly every 4 hours, of this groupings pushing forward until being destroyed.
This has pushed the Ukrainians backwards slowly, but not a lot. At the best advance they have pushed 3 kilometres into Ukrainian held territory.
I think the strategical goal here is very limited.
Pushing forward to the next line where they can create a defensive line, consolidate and then try to repeat.
At the same time Ukraine does not want to commit their army grouping that is preparing for their spring offensive.
I do though think that in the end the Ukrainians will have to do a limited counter attack in force.
When do I think that Ukraine will push forward their Spring Offensive?
Well, first they will wait for more equipment to gain in offensive strength, and they will wait for the ground to carry better.
Late March or April would be ideal, perhaps even as late as May.
It is depending on the weather and the ground now, they are already ready.
Problem is that the Punditry might force them to do a premature offensive.
Idealy they would though want the Kreminna/Svatove campaign to be finished prior to going on the offensive, after all their best army group is locked down there right now, and even after that they will need rest and to change their equipment to the new western one.
I know at least partially where they will hit, but I can't obviously say where that will be.
The spring offensive is not depending on new tanks, that is all I can say.
The summer offensive does though require them, or at least be more effective with them.
But the CV90s, Bradley's and so on is quite enough together with the tanks they have to tide them over for the spring offensive.
Even if the Leopard's had been freed they would not have been used in the Spring Offensive.
What I can say is that our favourite colonels Tank Brigade is the best equiped on the entire frontline and is quite beyond any brigade that Russia can field.
She has updated T-72s, T-80Us and even a couple of T-90S (due to Russian donations), and she has spare tanks if needed.
Russia is dreaming right now about being able to field anything like it.
On top of that she has a mix of updated BMPs, and quite a lot of western provided lighter combat vehicles.
On top of that she has Krabs, Zusanas and Himars as artillery.
Technically she obviously have a general above her, but she is now the field commander of 1 tank, 1 mech, 1 infantry and one artillery brigade of each type. It is quite an impressive army group. And after a brief reequip it will be even more impressive when the BMPs are switched to CV9040s with anti-tank missiles, and the 24 Archers.
This will obviously free up equipment for a new mech brigade and a new artillery brigade somewhere else.
It is quite telling of how hard the Russians are fighting as they try to stop the inevitable in Kreminna and Svatove.
Expect good news from there soon regardless of the Russian unusual fighting spirit.
What I find most insane is that Russia has almost completely emptied out Luhansk to be able to hold, instead of just bleeding Ukraine a bit, and then falling back to the next line... instead they are taking such a beating that Ukraine will be able to take quite a bit of Luhansk if they wish.
Anyway, this is more than enough for today.
I know, I am longwinded and rambling.
I will just say that the tank problem is almost solved now, without incorporating the Germans.
At least until the current leadership there has become more trustworthy.
b***r, I will have to recertify as a tanker on an Abrams.. shart."