The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
Meanwhile, in Moscow's flying tv propoganda circus
Details
"Before I start I need to update the numbers a tiny bit.
Some analyst has spent way to much coffee and hours on analysis satelite pictures and counted, not calculated (cheech...), how many Russians there are in Ukraine.
This includes Donetsk and Luhansk militias, Regular army, Mobiks, Wagnerites and Kadyrovites.
Anyway, the number is 326 000.
2/3 are frontline troops, this is frankly a ridiculous number.
Normal fraction is at around 10 - 20 percent. The rest are either resting, training, logistics, repairshops... etcetera.
You need all of that to be able to sustain the war.
Now, a quick comparison to the Ukrainians.
They have a whopping 1 040 000 soldiers, with around 20 percent available for the frontline at any given moment.
Let us say that Ukraine has 210 000 soldiers vs Russias 220 000. Pretty even in that respect.
There is just one problem, Ukraine has 200 000 training, 200 000 resting... And a giant arsed logistics and repair setup.
The next thing is that Ukraine has a material advantage due to the almost endless supply of weapons and gear from the West.
This means that the Ukrainians should be able to almost toy with the Russians?
Problem is that it is not as easy as that for many very good reasons.
Let me go through those reasons before I start to muse towards the east.
Frontline disparity
Bizarily enough Ukraine has twice the length of frontline compared to Russia. This means that Ukraine must have twice the number of soldiers to achieve parity per frontline kilometre.
This has been caused by Biden quite frankly being an idiot, at least in this regard.
He has hogtied Ukraine into not attacking Russia with western arms, and to not cross the border.
A few missiles and a few special forces seems to be okay, and a bit of shelling.
But a tactical, or even strategic, offensive into Russia is out of the question.
And since Russia knows that they do not need to hold large forces protecting that huge stretch of border.
But, by threatening with a northern offensive the Ukrainians must stick around for that frontline spanning from Poland, via Belarus, all the way to Luhansk.
It is far from fair.
If things had been equal that Ukrainian surplus manpower would already have pushed Russia back quite a bit.
In the long run (year perspective) it will not have any effect though.
Human Life
Ukraine are far more conservative with the life of their soldiers.
And it tells in the comparatively love mortality rate, even when attacking it is lower than the Russian defender numbers.
Russia on the other hand does not give a ****.
Of the elite Airborne troops we know that the loss rate from the beginning of the war is roughly 50 percent.
The untrained Mobiks have far higher loss rate numbers, same with the Wagnerites and the militias.
It is here good to point out that Russias peak combat force in Ukraine topped out at 500 000 soldiers, and is after drafts and mobilisation down to 326 000 soldiers.
Ouch.
But, not caring about human life has a value in and of itself however gruesome it might seem.
It makes it possible for the Russians to slowly wear down defences, and even at times overwhelm them.
The cost is though immense.
Finally, with 326 000 Soldiers and 800 dead plus 1600 wounded per day things is not looking nice.
Russia only have soldiers for 150 days left.
Let us now be generous and say that those 200 000 are still there in Unseensk Russia (they are not), it would only add about 75 more days to total army annihilation.
Yes, they are doing a trickle mobilisation, but I am still stumped that they are not performing a massive new mobilisation to account for their grieveous losses.
Ukrainian tactical pause
Ukraine has decided to not attack during the mud season since winter was cancelled this year.
Instead they are waiting untill things dry up.
Ukraines strength is mobile manouvre warfare, and attacking in ultrarapid through the Ukrainian Supermud is just asking for your soldiers to be chewed up by the Russians.
Not a good way to save the lives of your soldiers.
Russia on the other hand is happy to plod forward regardless and waste life.
In the end Ukraine have handed over both the tactical and strategical impetus to Russia from an offensive standpoint, and are instead concentrating on defencive actions.
Problem is that this means they are being pushed backwards ever so slowly.
This is due to Russia being able to pick the battle fields, and Ukraine having to constantly move forces to reinforce.
Remember that during the summer and autumn it was exactly the opposite way?
Offensive staging
Ukraine is though getting ready for their upcoming offensive.
It will most definitely not be in Luhansk, nor will it be Donetsk.
Donbass can wait for the time being.
Ukraine have large forces at Zhaporizhzhia from the Kakhovka dam all the way over to Vuhledar.
But, it is towards Tokmak, Melitopol and Berdyansk that Ukraine is using their artillery, and with spectacular effect.
This is tying up resources even further, even though it came in handy as the hapless Russians attacked straight into the bulk of the Ukrainian army both towards Zhaporizhzhia and towards Vuhledar.
And a lot artillery has been tied down in Kherson over the winter, both to protect Kherson City and Mykolaiv, but also to weaken the forces in Kherson sufficiently for the frontal assault that more and more analyticists are starting to believe in now.
I am sitting on my hands trying to not say... "told you so".
And now Ukraine is slowly moving a unit here, a unit there... towards Kherson.
And due to everyone braying donkishly about "BAKHMUUUUUT!" like if they are the Foghorn signal on Fastnet Rock, everyone has missed the ongoing small island battles.
Anyway, even less troops is also having an effect in the East
Kreminna
Ukraine attacking at this vector have reversed the situation, Russia is forced to pull in ever more resources into Kreminna to be able to hold.
So much so that Ukraine in the end had to dig down and return to Borstjing the Russians.
Kreminna/Svatove has basically eaten a large chunk of the available reserve of Russia that was intended for the Russian offensive.
Soledar
Ukraine has constructed a new sturdy defenceline, and Russia has had to pull troop away from here. That stopped any North and West offensive lines, and now they are concentrating on trying to push through towards the Holy Russian BDSM City of Bakhmut.
And, on that regard...
BAKHMUUUUUT!
I can Foghorn Leghorn with the best of them, but I seem to be able of thinking about many things at the same time.
I will never understand the perversity going on between Prigozhin and Zurovikin at Bakhmut.
But, Prigozhin being a complete and utter military Numbnuts saved Bakhmut for months.
Being a thug and a rapist he just understood how to run strait into it without any manouvres or flanking experiments.
Gerasimov spared no time in subsuming Wagner directly into the army, demoting Prigozhin to PR duties, and then he got on with doing quite bog standard army stuff.
Two fairly standard pincer manouvre breakthroughs in slow-motion later and he has Bakhmut in a pocket with both big roads under artillery fire control.
Only the mud delayed his action, and I would say that the Ukrainian commander was a tad slow on changing tack from Stupid Prigozhin Tactics, to normal army tactics.
Now Ukraine has two alternatives.
Holding on to a completely useless City, or fall back to the prepared nice comfy defence line behind them.
The only reason to hold Bakhmut is that it is costing Russian lives, but either they have to take higher losses themselves and risk being encircled, reinforce there, or even counter-attack.
Counter attacking during the mud season would just be silly. Slav1nnska did a rapid one there, but that was only possible due to the ground being very temporarily frozen, and as soon as it mudded up she hightailed it out of there.
Reinforcing and holding? Nah, not into a pocket.
Holding and dying? Not really the style of the Ukrainian army.
So, withdraw it is after bleeding the Russians some more.
I give Bakhmut 1-3 weeks and then goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The East
In the end Ukraine has made a choice, the East is for now to be held.
It is Crimea that will bring victory, and even losing a few bits and pieces in Donbas is worth it if the can put an end to the war.
And to be honest, as soon as Ukraine punches southward towards Crimea (regardless of where), Russia will have to start moving troops to try to hold Crimea at any cost.
Crimea will in the end become Kreminna on a gigantic scale, but in reality it will be Northern Kherson.
Bonus Musing
So... Kreminna...
Well, guess who is not there any longer?
Her own brigade was rotated.
She rapidly dropped off the equipment from the Brigade and went for an extended pause to wash her feet, don a clean uniform, pester me with comments about being bored, and to wait as her new equipment is being slowly ferried across the Polish border...
Spring is coming to Ukraine in a while.
The old gear is now going into a new Brigade.
Somehow she has a new nickname, Nyshchivnyy Kuvalda.
Quite befitting, descriptive, and sort of reminds me of part of her real name."
"Before I start I need to update the numbers a tiny bit.
Some analyst has spent way to much coffee and hours on analysis satelite pictures and counted, not calculated (cheech...), how many Russians there are in Ukraine.
This includes Donetsk and Luhansk militias, Regular army, Mobiks, Wagnerites and Kadyrovites.
Anyway, the number is 326 000.
2/3 are frontline troops, this is frankly a ridiculous number.
Normal fraction is at around 10 - 20 percent. The rest are either resting, training, logistics, repairshops... etcetera.
You need all of that to be able to sustain the war.
Now, a quick comparison to the Ukrainians.
They have a whopping 1 040 000 soldiers, with around 20 percent available for the frontline at any given moment.
Let us say that Ukraine has 210 000 soldiers vs Russias 220 000. Pretty even in that respect.
There is just one problem, Ukraine has 200 000 training, 200 000 resting... And a giant arsed logistics and repair setup.
The next thing is that Ukraine has a material advantage due to the almost endless supply of weapons and gear from the West.
This means that the Ukrainians should be able to almost toy with the Russians?
Problem is that it is not as easy as that for many very good reasons.
Let me go through those reasons before I start to muse towards the east.
Frontline disparity
Bizarily enough Ukraine has twice the length of frontline compared to Russia. This means that Ukraine must have twice the number of soldiers to achieve parity per frontline kilometre.
This has been caused by Biden quite frankly being an idiot, at least in this regard.
He has hogtied Ukraine into not attacking Russia with western arms, and to not cross the border.
A few missiles and a few special forces seems to be okay, and a bit of shelling.
But a tactical, or even strategic, offensive into Russia is out of the question.
And since Russia knows that they do not need to hold large forces protecting that huge stretch of border.
But, by threatening with a northern offensive the Ukrainians must stick around for that frontline spanning from Poland, via Belarus, all the way to Luhansk.
It is far from fair.
If things had been equal that Ukrainian surplus manpower would already have pushed Russia back quite a bit.
In the long run (year perspective) it will not have any effect though.
Human Life
Ukraine are far more conservative with the life of their soldiers.
And it tells in the comparatively love mortality rate, even when attacking it is lower than the Russian defender numbers.
Russia on the other hand does not give a ****.
Of the elite Airborne troops we know that the loss rate from the beginning of the war is roughly 50 percent.
The untrained Mobiks have far higher loss rate numbers, same with the Wagnerites and the militias.
It is here good to point out that Russias peak combat force in Ukraine topped out at 500 000 soldiers, and is after drafts and mobilisation down to 326 000 soldiers.
Ouch.
But, not caring about human life has a value in and of itself however gruesome it might seem.
It makes it possible for the Russians to slowly wear down defences, and even at times overwhelm them.
The cost is though immense.
Finally, with 326 000 Soldiers and 800 dead plus 1600 wounded per day things is not looking nice.
Russia only have soldiers for 150 days left.
Let us now be generous and say that those 200 000 are still there in Unseensk Russia (they are not), it would only add about 75 more days to total army annihilation.
Yes, they are doing a trickle mobilisation, but I am still stumped that they are not performing a massive new mobilisation to account for their grieveous losses.
Ukrainian tactical pause
Ukraine has decided to not attack during the mud season since winter was cancelled this year.
Instead they are waiting untill things dry up.
Ukraines strength is mobile manouvre warfare, and attacking in ultrarapid through the Ukrainian Supermud is just asking for your soldiers to be chewed up by the Russians.
Not a good way to save the lives of your soldiers.
Russia on the other hand is happy to plod forward regardless and waste life.
In the end Ukraine have handed over both the tactical and strategical impetus to Russia from an offensive standpoint, and are instead concentrating on defencive actions.
Problem is that this means they are being pushed backwards ever so slowly.
This is due to Russia being able to pick the battle fields, and Ukraine having to constantly move forces to reinforce.
Remember that during the summer and autumn it was exactly the opposite way?
Offensive staging
Ukraine is though getting ready for their upcoming offensive.
It will most definitely not be in Luhansk, nor will it be Donetsk.
Donbass can wait for the time being.
Ukraine have large forces at Zhaporizhzhia from the Kakhovka dam all the way over to Vuhledar.
But, it is towards Tokmak, Melitopol and Berdyansk that Ukraine is using their artillery, and with spectacular effect.
This is tying up resources even further, even though it came in handy as the hapless Russians attacked straight into the bulk of the Ukrainian army both towards Zhaporizhzhia and towards Vuhledar.
And a lot artillery has been tied down in Kherson over the winter, both to protect Kherson City and Mykolaiv, but also to weaken the forces in Kherson sufficiently for the frontal assault that more and more analyticists are starting to believe in now.
I am sitting on my hands trying to not say... "told you so".
And now Ukraine is slowly moving a unit here, a unit there... towards Kherson.
And due to everyone braying donkishly about "BAKHMUUUUUT!" like if they are the Foghorn signal on Fastnet Rock, everyone has missed the ongoing small island battles.
Anyway, even less troops is also having an effect in the East
Kreminna
Ukraine attacking at this vector have reversed the situation, Russia is forced to pull in ever more resources into Kreminna to be able to hold.
So much so that Ukraine in the end had to dig down and return to Borstjing the Russians.
Kreminna/Svatove has basically eaten a large chunk of the available reserve of Russia that was intended for the Russian offensive.
Soledar
Ukraine has constructed a new sturdy defenceline, and Russia has had to pull troop away from here. That stopped any North and West offensive lines, and now they are concentrating on trying to push through towards the Holy Russian BDSM City of Bakhmut.
And, on that regard...
BAKHMUUUUUT!
I can Foghorn Leghorn with the best of them, but I seem to be able of thinking about many things at the same time.
I will never understand the perversity going on between Prigozhin and Zurovikin at Bakhmut.
But, Prigozhin being a complete and utter military Numbnuts saved Bakhmut for months.
Being a thug and a rapist he just understood how to run strait into it without any manouvres or flanking experiments.
Gerasimov spared no time in subsuming Wagner directly into the army, demoting Prigozhin to PR duties, and then he got on with doing quite bog standard army stuff.
Two fairly standard pincer manouvre breakthroughs in slow-motion later and he has Bakhmut in a pocket with both big roads under artillery fire control.
Only the mud delayed his action, and I would say that the Ukrainian commander was a tad slow on changing tack from Stupid Prigozhin Tactics, to normal army tactics.
Now Ukraine has two alternatives.
Holding on to a completely useless City, or fall back to the prepared nice comfy defence line behind them.
The only reason to hold Bakhmut is that it is costing Russian lives, but either they have to take higher losses themselves and risk being encircled, reinforce there, or even counter-attack.
Counter attacking during the mud season would just be silly. Slav1nnska did a rapid one there, but that was only possible due to the ground being very temporarily frozen, and as soon as it mudded up she hightailed it out of there.
Reinforcing and holding? Nah, not into a pocket.
Holding and dying? Not really the style of the Ukrainian army.
So, withdraw it is after bleeding the Russians some more.
I give Bakhmut 1-3 weeks and then goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The East
In the end Ukraine has made a choice, the East is for now to be held.
It is Crimea that will bring victory, and even losing a few bits and pieces in Donbas is worth it if the can put an end to the war.
And to be honest, as soon as Ukraine punches southward towards Crimea (regardless of where), Russia will have to start moving troops to try to hold Crimea at any cost.
Crimea will in the end become Kreminna on a gigantic scale, but in reality it will be Northern Kherson.
Bonus Musing
So... Kreminna...
Well, guess who is not there any longer?
Her own brigade was rotated.
She rapidly dropped off the equipment from the Brigade and went for an extended pause to wash her feet, don a clean uniform, pester me with comments about being bored, and to wait as her new equipment is being slowly ferried across the Polish border...
Spring is coming to Ukraine in a while.
The old gear is now going into a new Brigade.
Somehow she has a new nickname, Nyshchivnyy Kuvalda.
Quite befitting, descriptive, and sort of reminds me of part of her real name."
RedAsABeetroot
Well-known member
Just in case anyone else is wondering
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Thanks for this - Does the insider have any update on Kinburn Spit? It seems to be a month or so ago he/she mentioned that that a landing had taken place including artillery and pushed on a bit. I keep checking the OSINT crowd who publish stuff like satellite fire imagery and such which is a decent enough shorthand for where contact is taking place but it never shows as much as a flicker. Did this landing take place and are they still there, or is there some sort of agreement with the open to the public satellite companies not to be so candid with what they allow to be bought or they release into the open?
Ta
I think he wrote about this a week or so ago. There are still forces on the spit and there is ongoing work to clear out the islands between N and S Kherson (from where the Russians were shelling N kherson civilian targets like hospitals). The forces on the spit are holding AFAIK rather than on the offensive. Just waiting.
He has just explained this a bit.
"Sorry, I should have written it.
It is a wordplay in Ukrainian, both words means sledgehammer, but the first one also means 'crushing', the second also means 'strong'.
In the context it is 'Crushing Sledgehammer'.
And that in turn also has at least two meanings.
One, that she is like a Sledgehammer that crushes things.
The second one is that a few weeks ago as she swung past Bakhmut hit Wagner so hard that they effectively had to give up and hand over control of the Bakhmut offensive to the regular Russian army.
And Wagner is famous for using sledgehammers on peoples heads, so it also means 'the one who crushed the sledgehammer'.
Slavic languages are pretty much made for wordplays like this since each word has many many meanings.
Good for poetry and literature, not as good for contract writing...
The play title "The Cherry Orchard" famously has 7 different meanings and counting..."
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Thanks for this. So tying down Rasshists in south Kherson oblast and tidying up the river for a proper crossing.
HolgateCorner
Well-known member
That bit about the difference between the two frontlines is very interesting and I suppose highlights a big difference between waging a defensive operation compared to an offensive war or if it’s even possible to do at all. Borolads contact has been itching for months for Ukraine to be allowed to invade Russia to redress this anomaly.
It‘s a strange conflict at all levels, in my opinion it’s still hard to see beyond the stalemate continuing and that will be devastating for the ordinary people on both sides.
It‘s a strange conflict at all levels, in my opinion it’s still hard to see beyond the stalemate continuing and that will be devastating for the ordinary people on both sides.
swordtrombonefish
Well-known member
Suggestion that the Russians are massing 500000 men for a new offensive?
Ukraine war: Russia planning 24 February offensive, Ukrainian defence minister says
Kyiv says Russia has amassed 500,000 men for an attack in the coming weeks.
www.bbc.co.uk
Suggestion that the Russians are massing 500000 men for a new offensive?
Ukraine war: Russia planning 24 February offensive, Ukrainian defence minister says
Kyiv says Russia has amassed 500,000 men for an attack in the coming weeks.www.bbc.co.uk
This is somewhat at odds, not just with the numbers posted yesterday, but also with this .... possibly a very significant development.
"Less than an hour ago Russia released two very direct newsarticles in all relevant government papers in Russia, and in all foreign language editions. And I mean all.
Both articles are incredibly short and to the point. (For being Russian)
The first one was about an emergency session on the 8th. It is rampacked with verifiable details.
All of them checks out.
The second was that Russia has asked for an emergency session in the UN Security Council on The Peaceful Settlement of Ukrainian Crisis.
This is quite frankly unheard of.
First one, Evidence. Second one, What the Evidence is for.
And even in Russia you need one hell of an amount of pull to get every news agency to dunk out this at the same time.
I think that for the first time Russia is truly talking, and someone new they needed to talk with very big letters to make a splash.
I am still trying to get over Russia talking in a form that is factually correct.
I checked the details. Every single detail from the meeting being scheduled on the docket, to who said what and that they are what is claimed.
Early days, but judging from how forceful it is presented, they at least want to be taken seriously."
This is all a bit oblique as of yet for me to get too excited, and who knows what the details would be.
My guess would be Russia trying to get a peace settlement now, from the position of having made recent tactical gains (albeit in two insignificant areas) and before the leopards, archers and other western gear arrives to force the issue.
I think this has all the hallmarks of another false dawn.
Russia is amassing very large troop numbers and ramping up artillery attacks.
Russia will not accept any settlement that takes all of the occupied territories from them and Ukraine will not accept any settlement which doesn’t.
Like most conflicts I think this will eventually end with some sort of settlement but I fear there will be a great deal more death and suffering before that happens.
Too early to say either way.
For sure, whether militarily or diplomatically, Russia will try to hang on to as much as it can.
But Ukraine ain't going to play nice on that score.
Russian forces (elite forces) took an absolute hammering whilst trying to take Vuhledar yesterday.
Inevitably, the senseless loss of life will continue for some time yet.
Paintolerance
Well-known member
This is a fascinating thread. However, it was titled the end in September. I'm not sure, 5 months later, the end is even remotely in sight.
Druss_The_Legend
Well-known member
From what I have seen on twitter one of the Putin's has made his usual threats but to Germany now. He doesn't seem best pleased about the Leopards being released.
Sadly not.
A point that has been made a few times. You will note that there was a question mark.
I do think that the dissent shown by the politicians who censured Putin was something of a watershed moment. At the time we didn't know that Putin was in decline personally or politically.
The situation, both on the battlefield and in Moscow, looks very different now from the way it looked in early September.
If real Putin was active and powerful, he'd have been dealing with Scholz and his patsy defence minister privately on the phone.
To be fair the message has been that this will all be over with soon until fairly recently.