The end?

[Decent_Left]

Bit of an update with an addendum

"It was an interesting day to say the least.
I had my monthly day at the "typewriter place".
A few things we discussed I can't discuss, but you do not need to be a genius to get that two of the topics was Turkey, and the other was the impending Russian offensive.

The topic was named "Sanctioning of Turkey", and it was quite schizophrenic to under that title discuss how to best aid Turkey.
Let us say that for now it is somewhat of an about turn as EU is scrambling to send help and aid.
Regardless of this, general consensus is that Turkey is out of the equation for the time being, and that all energy is better spent on helping the population.

So, let us move onwards to the more interesting topic of the Russian Spring Offensive.
I have been trying to say as much as I could about this, but obviously that was far from everything.
But, now I can say a fair bit more about it.

The general troop situation on the Russian side is as I have stated it, so bad if you are a Russian, but good if you are a Ukrainian.
Regardless, it will not be fun obviously for Ukraine.
Let me start with where Russia has injected troops.

Melitopol, about 20 000 new troops have arrived here.
It is believed that they are not there for any offensive purposes.
We believe that the attack in Zhaporizhzhia near the Nova Kakhovka dams northern end was just a feint to lock down Ukrainian troops.
Instead we have good reason to believe that these new troops are there to counter the upcoming Ukrainian Spring Offensive.

Mariupol has also received some 20 000 new troops.
These are believed to be there prior to a bigger offensive against Vuhledar.
Ukraine certainly thinks so, and they are prepared for them.
Urkaine does not want to be pushed away from the area, since Vuhledar will become important later on as it is the lynchpin defending the route towards Mariupol and towards encircling Donetsk in the future.
It is also important so that Ukraine can coninue to hurt transport routes along the land bridge to Crimea, and also so they can cut those roads and rail lines in a little while.
Russia is already on the offensive trying to push out the defenders from Vuhledar itself, but this is more staging than the big push.
But, already Russia is taking heavy losses there, both in manpower and equipment (11 tanks yesterday).
Ukraine has sent in the 72nd mechanised brigade to spearhead against the tanks, and they are among the top 4 armoured brigades.
Expect a large mechanized battle here in a few days.
I do not think Russia will get far, Ukraine is well prepared here, and Russia lacks the equipment needed to advance far.

Bakhmut is about to fall, at least partially according to the Ukrainians.
They are ready to fall back to a new defence line, so no big loss really.
The Russians are gonna try to push their advantage, but this will not be the site for a large offensive for now.

Soledar, Russia has reinforced here, and will try to push North to close the southern way to Kreminna, and also attack towards Kramatorsk. About 20 000 soldiers are enroute here or already there at the backlines.
Personally I think they will first strike towards the North since this would strengthen Kreminna.

Kreminna, here Russia is prepairing a large attack towards Lyman. Signs are that it has already slowly started.
Russia has already reinforced with 25 000 men here, and another 15 000 seems to be coming in.
Lyman hurt Russian pride, so this will for now be the main attack, and to succeed Russia must close the Southern gap from Soledar upwards.
Ukraine obviously have plans to stop this.
I think Russia might be able to close the gap to Kreminna, but they lack the manpower and equipment to take back Lyman.

Svatove, here the goal is first to push Ukraine out of Luhansk, support the push towards Lyman, and if things go well push back towards Kharkiv. To be able to this Russia has sent in 15 000 troops.
I think that here Russia will at worst get some limited advancements, but they lack manpower and equipment to go further.

Northern front, as of now we do not see any concentrations pointing towards any real attack. There are only 25 000 Russian soldiers along the entire line from Belarus border towards Poland all the way over to Kharkiv.
It is though likely that they will do probing attacks to try and draw away Ukrainian reinforcements from other sectors, but Ukraine will not need them, even if Russia would concentrate the forces unexpectedly.

It is weird, it must be the first time in history that a country is openly stating what they will try to do in advance of doing it.
Everything is pointing towards Russia really attempting to take all of Donbass.
Only problem is that they seem to conveniently have forgotten a couple of small things...

Rivers
Russia has proven themselves to be really bad at crossing rivers. This is a bit surprising really, we do not understand where all the river crossing equipment has gone that the Soviets used to have, and that we know that they used to practice a lot with.
Pretty much all attempts to cross rivers have ended up in a disaster in the last year, so how on Earth they are planning to all of a sudden master it during an offensive across river after river... against a superiorly armed and numbered enemy, is just beyond me.

Topography
Russia will be fighting uphill the entire way. I hope I do not need to point out how much more comfy it is to shoot down on your enemies compared to shoting upwards...
It is also hard to drive up hills and run up hills.

Equipment and logistics
Russia will if successful stretch their logistics quite a bit, and they would need an enormous amount of artillery shells that they seem to not have.
Russia also is severely lacking in both tanks and tank viagra.
And, they seem to not have brought forth any other large amount of armoured vehicles needed for a large scale offensive.

Numbers
400 000ish troops is a lot, but against an enemy that has the numerical advantage it is not good enough.
Yes, they will have the numerical advantage on the Eastern front to begin with, but Ukraine can as soon as they are sure about the offensive being real there send in reinforcements to slam the door shut.
Also, Ukraine have line after line to fall back into along the entire front.

Conclusion
Since Russia has not done another large scale mobilisation this is Mission Impossible for Russia.
They will not be able to grab Donbass, and after the offensive Russia will be totally spent.
Even at the current rate of losses the entire amount of fresh troops will be gone in 40-50 days, and I expect the losses to increase dramatically.
It will be an utter bloodbath due to the lack of heavy armour and artillery.

Even if Russia later on try to do a large scale mobilisation they will not be able to do it in time to affect the Ukrainian Spring Offensive, that will be done with troops that will not even be used in Donbass (a few might meander over to Vuhledar if needed).
Then there will be nothing left to reinforce against Ukraine.

For Ukraine they can loose a few dozens of square kilometres in Donbass against heaploads of dead and wounded Russians.
Donbass is big...
For Ukraine what is important is to go for the jugular, and that is Crimea.
Crimea is easy to cut off supplies to, and make it into a supersized version of Northern Kherson.
And the political punch would be ginormous inside of Russia.

Western Equipment
Do not trust all you see about late arrival dates etcetera for equipment to Ukraine.
This is in parts plain diversionary bull****.
Quite a bit of equipment is arriving far faster than flagged.
Tanks are arriving already, a poor Canadian tank is masquerading for a lot of other tanks ambling into Ukraine through various other routes.

Things are already arriving, and Ukraine will have loads as April comes around the corner.
A certain someone is already fondling the first batch of her stuff, and the rest will be there in good time for her to use.
GLSDBs? Well, a first batch will arrive quite a bit faster than expressed, etcetera.

A slight hickup happened though.
Russia did something incredibly dangerous and sent a couple of subs to a point between Gothenburg and Denmark.
One was a hunter/killer and the other a missile sub.
The missile sub forced us to send out and set up one of our Patriot AD systems at Gothenburg.
The missile sub commander then got it into his brain to open his missile hatches...
Thankfully we had a Gotland class sub hard on his tail, so it flooded the torpedo tubes noisily and started pinging the Russian with active sonar.
Russia got the picture right about as he was going to become fishfood and turned towards open sea and back to Murmansk.
The other sub will soon also be a problem moving towards Murmansk.
This put a corker in transports obviously, so the ship with 60 Bradley's had to beline to UK for a pitstop and wait while we and the Danes explain to the Russians that they will stop having toys to play with if they continue.
We have though been nice and explained that if any more funky stuff happens we will start sinking their toys in our own waters.
Our own waters being interpreted generously here.
Since it was said behind the scenes the Russians took it as a friendly but stern warning to be taken seriously.
They are though dismayed that we could track their subs in realtime.

Normal operations will soon resume."

Then this in brief late on

"Ukraine High Command just notified the world that Russia had performed shelling on Hola Prystan.
Ukraine only notifies if Russia shells Ukrainian held territory.
In other words, it is now finally official that Hola Prystan was indeed liberated by that attack.

Now it is an official race between Ukraine to expand the bridgehead and bring reinforcements, and Russia to send reinforcements to try to stop this unmitigated disaster in Russian planning.
I am now having a celebratory whiskey.

Now comes the rather intricate question, what the hell will this have for effect upon the Russian offensive?
Will they stubbornly plod onwards, or will they try to adapt to having a large Ukrainian army dildo reaming their back door?"

Def Mon who tries to keep an eye on lines of contact was miffed at the timing of the Hola Prystan announcement

https://twitter.com/x/status/1622661532743094274

 

[Lefty]

So with Hola Prystan in Ukrainian hands they now have a bridgehead across the river that might make a staging post for a future advance toward Crimea?

 

[Lefty]

So with Hola Prystan in Ukrainian hands they now have a bridgehead across the river that might make a staging post for a future advance toward Crimea?

Or is that premature?

 

[borolad259]

Or is that premature?

They have, as usual, been very quiet as to how far they have gone and how well established they are in Holaprystan.
But, presumably, that was the intention, to build a logistics hub to support the press towards Crimea.

 

[Lefty]

They have, as usual, been very quiet as to how far they have gone and how well established they are in Holaprystan.
But, presumably, that was the intention, to build a logistics hub to support the press towards Crimea.

They might have only taken an island in the middle of the river I'm reading, rather than the main settlement on the far bank.

 

[Fattyfoggon]

what's the general feeling on how Ukraine are doing as from the likes of the Guardian and the BBC it sounds like it is not going so well for Ukraine now dues to the Russians being better organised and throwing massive numbers of troops against Ukraine hopefully it is just Russian propaganda and Ukraine are still in a strong position to regain their lands ?

 

[borolad259]

They might have only taken an island in the middle of the river I'm reading, rather than the main settlement on the far bank.

As things are opaque at the moment, it's hard to know for sure but, as far as I know, the business of taking the islands was done over the last week or two. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

@Fattyfoggon the Russians are trying to launch an offensive across various stretches of the front line in an attempt to make ground before the Ukrainians hit their straps with the new gear. They are particularly active around Bakhmut and Kremmina.... with Lyman and Kramatorsk as their focus. They kept having a go at Vhledar but that has gone catastrophically badly for them (they lost 1,000 troops and 14 tanks in one day). The Ukarainians seem content with containing those offensives, maybe even giving up a bit of ground here and there, whilst degrading the Russian forces. Russia is sending a lot of troops and, yes, Gerasimov, has them well organised. However, they are not as well equipped or armed. As our man said, it's likely than they will keep those Russian forces fixed up North while preparing a move themselves down to Crimea.
That is what it looks like, though, as the Ukrainians don't give much away ... and our man keeps things back if they are too sensitive... there is no real certainty.

 

[Scrote]

the Russians being better organised and throwing massive numbers of troops against Ukraine hopefully it is just Russian propaganda and Ukraine are still in a strong position to regain their lands ?

I'd imagine there's a good dose of Ukrainian propoganda in there as well. If Russia is strong & organised then Ukraine needs more & better weapons.

 

[zzzzz]

The latest reported situation is not reflective of the tone of this thread.
Some pretty dire forecasts coming out.
The sooner the latest promised weaponry arrives the better.

 

[MolteniArcore]

The latest reported situation is not reflective of the tone of this thread.
Some pretty dire forecasts coming out.
The sooner the latest promised weaponry arrives the better.

I have often thought this but then the promised Russian gains from the wider media never seem to materialise.

 

[zzzzz]

I have often thought this but then the promised Russian gains from the wider media never seem to materialise.

Several cities at risk according to the media. But you wouldn't know the real picture, odd that they're reporting it though if there isn't a risk

 

[Mwelolo]

Truth is often one of the first casualties of war.

 

[Decent_Left]

The latest reported situation is not reflective of the tone of this thread.
Some pretty dire forecasts coming out.
The sooner the latest promised weaponry arrives the better.

Disagree with this. Yes the delivery and use of the latest equipment can’t come soon enough, but based on a lot of open source info to add colour to the reports from Borolads source it’s not dire but frustrating from a Ukrainian perspective. Dire from a Russian squaddie perspective maybe.

None of this is triumphalist as given the death counts on both sides it’s still very bleak.

 

[Boroboyyo]

Kind of reinforces the point that Putin was never interested in becoming an ally of the west or Russia having good relations with us

All this stems from is the midget is upset his empire he called a country collapsed and he wanted it back. He never saw the former soviet states as proper countries

It’s why it’s a F***ing waste of time pandering to him

None of this is about nato or nazi homosexuals like he claims , it’s about the fact he wants Belarus and Ukraine to aid in reforming the Soviet Union or Russian empire . He’s never even F***ing hidden it, yet there are still bellends (cough cough corbyn ) who blame nato

 

[Muttley]

Truth is often one of the first casualties of war.

Indeed when reading the stuff from Ukraine remember they are lying too, their agenda is to keep the weapons and money coming so they need to tell us about imminent Russian offensives. But never forget the Russian's can end this tomorrow without the need to negotiate anything by simply returning to their own country, the Ukrainians do not have this option.

 

[borolad259]

Some answers to your questions here.

"Now that the UK has released the MoD Intelligence Report on the upcoming Mildly Offensive Season, I can now talk a bit more clearly about what I wrote about in the last month or so.
I find it amusing that the Punderati and "Expert Analysts" claimed that Russia would do a superduper massive spring offensive on a scale not even seen on Invasion day a year ago.
All realistic and as confirmed as can be numbers pointed towards it being completely impossible.

Somehow this influenced the Ukrainian Intelligence reporting, unto a point where they believed in it too.
The good that came out of it is that it was used as a means to give Ukraine the needed weapons for their own offensive later in the spring.

The Western Intelligence community was though quite surprised about all those mistakes by pundits, Ukrainians, "experts", etcetera. I think they need to relearn basic math skills.

On the Russian side their punditing propagandists obviously said there would be a big offensive, but even they were more sedate than the western pundits. Some of them even stated that this was a multiyear affair involving a long set of smaller advances.
When even Russian propaganda is more realistic it is rather something.
The Russians not officially affiliated with their state media went even further and described fairly exactly how limited the offensive would be, and many even pointed out that it would just squander Russias limited resources.
Strelkov as per usual was the most correct in his analysis and stated that the offensive might even be the cause of the collapse of the Russian army and Russia itself.

Now everyone has started to talk about a future upcoming massive general mobilisation in Russia.
I guess they need that to prop up their egos and save face.
Once more Strelkov is the unlikely source of the best analysis, he stated that it is basically a fevered dream since there is not enough equipment or ammunition production to sustain something like that.

In the real world Russia is likely to continue to mobilise and draft conscripts to somewhat sustain their forces from a numerical standpoint.
As I time and time have stated, Russia has lost the war, and now it is only a question about how stubborn they will be.
It is also a question about how fast the west can train and supply the Ukrainian army on new equipment.
A further point is the rather massive mobilisation that is currently going on in Ukraine for the summer and fall offensives, and that will take advantage of later western weapons packages.

And in regards of being stubborn, The West is building up its ordinance production suffuciently to be able to feed the Ukrainian army indefinitely.
Currently Ukraine are using 5000 to 6000 artillery shells per day, half Soviet and Half NATO-standard. At the end of the year Ukraine will be able to double that number.
I have previously harped on about precission of western artillery.
Currently Russia and Ukraine are using roughly the same amount of shells per day, but if we instead count shells on target Ukraine has a 3:1 advantage, it would be 5:1 if Ukraine only used western artillery.
Actually hitting your opponent? Who would've thunk that was important?

Ukrainian Spring Offensive
Unlike most "experts" and pundits believe Ukraine today has a numerical tank advantage on Russia.
And the advantage is increasing daily even without new western tanks.
The reason is threefold, Ukraine is repairing and building tanks of their own, Ukraine is receiving Soviet tanks from western countries, and Russia is helpful and donate quite a few tanks to be repaired and restored by the Ukrainians.

This means that Ukraine has enough armour for their Spring Offensive.
It has already sort of started, at least the preparatory stages of it, but the big push is coming later on.
Late march or early april is a good bet, but it all depends on the amount of rain that falls and how muddy things are locally in the path of the offensive.

Basically no, or very few western tanks will take part of this offensive.
The tanks was never intended for this offensive, they are for the later offensives when Ukrainian tank stores are depleted from the Spring Offensive.
Basically, there will be one or two western equipped armoured brigades participating.

The State of Russian Offensive
As Russia started their offensive they rapidly got bogged down both literally in the mud, and figuratively against the Ukrainian defences and counter-attacks.
At their best locations they are advancing a few hundred meters per day, and in some places they are not moving a single meter.
In places they are even advancing backwards due to lack of equipment.

As stated, the Russian politicians want Donbass taken before the end of March, it is totally impossible to do that with the manpower and equipment available, instead they are squandering their limited resources at an astounding rate.
Obviously the offensive is still building momentum, but since it is a very broad affair along the entire Western Front (Eastern from our perspective), it is lacking in cohesion and concetration.
It is doubtful that they will even be able to break through the Ukrainian lines enough to make any meaningful rapid advances.
But, be prepared for a month of Pundits doom and glooming about the unstoppable advance as the Russian army in places plod forward a few hundred meters per day.
I expect them to say that this proves that the Russian army is an unstoppable force.

In the real world of facts and figures it is clear that unless Russia unexpectedly find a huge bottle of Offensive Viagra to erect themselves with, this will be a very impotent affair.

Western Weapons Packages
Even the first Western tank package was astounding even to me.
Germany sending in 14 Leo 2Mk6s in March is fast, and on top of that the 180 something Leo 1s across the year is a powerful message. Obviously these will not be used against the more modern Russian tanks, but they are serviceable against the old stuff, and as an armour wall against defence lines.
Together with roughly 150 additional Leo 2s and 150 T-72s, this is a very powerful package.

But, here is my point.
It is "a" package. Germany openly now speaks about the 14 Leo 2Mk6s being the first of several packages to be delivered, same from many other Western countries.
Judging from the number of tank orders signed, over time the entire current Western fleet might go to Ukraine if Russia is stubborn enough.
We are obviously talking about a 3-4 year plan here for deliveries of roughly 500 tanks per year.
This is the message that we need to project towards Russia, a relentless wave of new equipment coming to Ukraine, slowly strangling Russia like an anaconda if they continue to be stubborn.

And with Stubborn here I am talking about a scenario where Ukraine has won the land war. It will not take more than a year after all. With stubborn I mean a Russia that continues to shell across their borders, and to send missiles here and there as fast as they can build them, or buy them from Iran and North Korea.
I am talking about Russia being so stubborn that Ukraine has to take a defensive zone around their country to safeguard civilians.
Russia must be brought to understanding that this level of Stubborn will not be permited, and that Ukraine will have the capability to solve that problem permanently.
This is why I am happy about the tank packages as I look into the future.

Airplanes
This is a point where I know what is going to come, and can't say a lot.
Ukraine will in the future receive airplanes, that is clear.
And it will be enough for their needs, both in the medium term and longterm.

What Ukraine will need are at least two different types of aircraft.
They need one with ground attack capability and that is equiped with Electronic Warfare equipment.
50 of those would make a big dent, and with a further 50-60 at a later stage.
Preferably these would be multirole capable and able to double as fighter jets.
Here it would have to be one of JAS-39/C Griffin, FA-18 Superhornet, or F-35s.
Let us just say that the F-35s are not gonna happen at this point in time for security reasons.
The other two are good possibilities.

50 pure fighter jets with an additional later 50 - 100.
These are purely there for denial of service for the Russian air force.
Here we are talking purely about F-16s.
Yes, there are Eurofighters, Rafales... etcetera, but these are not available in numbers required and in time.
All non F-16s would need to be built new since the west needs them, or they contain equipment that needs to be safeguarded from the Russians and the Chinese.

As soon as I can I will disclose the reasoning behind what Ukraine will receive, and why.
Let me just state that the Ukrainians are already training on the systems that they will receive.

GLSDBs, these will start to trickle in at the end of April by the looks of it.
It is a brand new system, so everything from launch vehicles to the missiles themselves will have to be newbuilds.
The brand new factory will over time be able to spin out 1000 of them per month, but it takes time to spool up such an enormous delivery and test chain.
Let us say that first month (May) will be 100 in Ukraine, and a rampup of about 100 per month from then on.

The effects of these missiles can't be overestimated. It will be the new goto-missile for Ukraine.
And for the Russians the effect will devastating even from the first missile. Having to move their logistics back from the 80km marker to the 150km marker will be an insane psychological blow.
Back when Himars came online it created such a mess that Ukraine could launch their big offensives taking back large areas.
Over time Russia could adapt to this change of logistics since it was still possible to stretch it since Himars is still shorter range than the famous 90km logisitics range of the Russian army.
150km will stretch that until things start to snap on an entirely different scale, Russia will have to pull off a rather surprising feat to get passed this hurdle.
Long term this is the main weapon if Russia decides to be Stubborn.
All that is needed is permitting Ukraine to use it to create a demilitarized zone 150km deep from their borders (without crossing the border even), and Russia will be forced to more or less depopulate the area over time.

300km+ missiles, well something will be delivered.
Still with the staunch order to not use it against Russian soil.
But, enough will be delivered to hit Crimea from current positions, and to hit the Kersh Bridge.
For the time being this will be very limited in numbers, and as soon as the GLSDBs can hit all of Crimea and the Bridge the deliveries will stop.
Longterm the deliveries might start again in case Russia is stubborn, and there is a need to hit deeper bases and missile launchers."

A bit later I will post a little gift.

 

[zzzzz]

Disagree with this. Yes the delivery and use of the latest equipment can’t come soon enough, but based on a lot of open source info to add colour to the reports from Borolads source it’s not dire but frustrating from a Ukrainian perspective. Dire from a Russian squaddie perspective maybe.

None of this is triumphalist as given the death counts on both sides it’s still very bleak.

Ukraine war: Borrowed time for Bakhmut as Russians close in

This small Ukrainian city has been at the centre of an epic six-month battle on the front line.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Lefty]

Extending the conflict 150km into Russia is going to be vital if this is ever to end in victory for Ukraine. Otherwise it is just a permanent state of readiness for another Russian attack in the future even if they do throw all their troops out of every part of Ukraine.

 

[Decent_Left]

Ukraine war: Borrowed time for Bakhmut as Russians close in

This small Ukrainian city has been at the centre of an epic six-month battle on the front line.

www.bbc.co.uk

Losing Bakhmut eventually is of little strategic consequence to Ukraine and is put simply as has been said in this thread many times a appalling WW1 reenactment cosplay by the Russians where Ukraine has simply killed and destroyed Russians be it PMC convicts or Russian army Mobiks in numbers scarcely believable in the 22nd century.

Read the latest post from Borolads contact. Russias gains are measured in meters.

 

[Decent_Left]

Losing Bakhmut eventually is of little strategic consequence to Ukraine and is put simply as has been said in this thread many times a appalling WW1 reenactment cosplay by the Russians where Ukraine has simply killed and destroyed Russians be it PMC convicts or Russian army Mobiks in numbers scarcely believable in the 22nd century.

Read the latest post from Borolads contact. Russias gains are measured in meters.

Conscious when I write like this that’s it not received in a way that comes across as cheerleading for war and am very aware those poor bloody Russians have as much right to waking up alive tomorrow as the rest of us, and that many Ukrainians are not coming home as well and that it’s all simply the fault of 1 man and his sycophantic underlings who could stop all this right now and just go home.