Bits and bobs
"Frontline
I am going to start in Kherson.
The Western half of occupied Kherson is now void of radars and air defence systems.
On top of that every single bridge, culvert, and so on is blown up.
This has led to a few interesting effects.
The first one is that Ukraine has started using their rather extensive fleet of Bayraktar Drones again giving them direct bombing ability, these are also supplemented by fixed wing aircraft bombers.
This means that there is basically hunting season on the Russians in the area from up on above.
Secondly, it means that Ukraine now can launch missiles and drones directly via Kherson into Crimea.
Thirdly, on the southern Coast Russia now has to rely on supplying the troops via boats, and with Bayraktars circling above it led to Russia losing a boat that was blown up when delivering troops to their own beach.
Fourthly, this all made it possible to once more take Kinburn Spit under control.
I suspect that this time around it is going to be permanently.
This lack of radars and air defence now seems to be endemic.
Russia still have those at the rest of occupied Ukraine, but the numbers have now dwindled so much that there are clear gaps.
If we look further afield we know that the Eastern half of Russia is devoid of radar systems and air defences.
The only exception is the naval units in the Far East, but it is questionably how much missiles they have since it is known that Russia has pulled hard on their reserves in favour of their Black Sea Fleet.
In the rest of Russia you can pretty much fly unhindered now with the exception of Moscow, St Petersburg and the military airfields.
The latter part is though quite open for debate.
If we go by Pskov it is apparent that they have a single loadout of missiles and no spares.
Now time to take a detour...
Japan
The Kuril Islands Dispute is in regards of 4 island at the southern tip of the Kuril Islands towards Japan.
At the end of the WWII the Soviet Union annexed the Kuril Islands, most of them was awarded to the Soviet Union in the peace treaty, but these 4 where not.
So, technically the Soviet Union and Russia has illegally annexed them.
To not lose them the Soviet Union and later Russia has kept them manned by Russian soldiers, air defence units and missile batteries.
The islands are Itorofu, Kunashiri, Shitokan and Habomai.
Currently they are unarmed and undefended since Russia has withdrawn all air defence units, all radars, all missiles, and all soldiers from the Kuril Islands as a whole.
This means that the Islands today are soly protected by the Russian Navy, and since that is believed to a great extent be low on missiles and ordinance the Japanese is starting to take a muscular stance towards those ships.
The Russian problem is further excarbated by Russian lack of bunker fuel for their ships.
The Russian navy has never bothered with building docks able to provide electricity, water and waste-removal (sewage pipelines), this means that the Russian navy pretty much has to run the ships engines non-stop to provide electricity, water, and that they have to have their crap pumped out either at sea or via trucks.
This draws a lot of bunker fuel, normally not a problem for Russia but with their refineries being blown up they are now having a shortage.
The available bunker fuel is prioritized for the Black Sea fleet and the diminutive Russian oil tanker fleet.
This has led to Russia being forced to shutter ships engines in the Far East, Kaliningrad and Murmansk.
By now half of the fleet is cold (not running engines), something that will be very uncomfy come winter.
Restarting worn out old engines is hard, and as winter sets in those ships will suffer a lot from blown pipes and so on.
Our estimates is that as much as half of Russias Western, Northern and Eastern Fleets are/or will be writeoffs soon.
This knowledge has further boldened Japan.
Thirdly, we have the meek Russian response on China annexing half an Island.
First they did it on a map, but a few days noticing the lack of Russian response they just walked over into the Russian side of the Island and just told every "Nihao!", and informed them that they from then on are Chinese.
You bet the Japanese followed that minute by minute...
The Japanese conclusion is obvious, there is not jackall that Russia can do if they just go and grab the islands.
Russia only has two alternatives, send an anemic protest, or go nuclear.
It is here good to remember that the Islands are considered Japanese to begin with, and annexing them back would not violate the Helsinki Accord.
China will probably protest a bit, but that will be it.
So, expect something here in a bit.
The Chinese sort of opened the pandora's box a bit, and if Japan goes ahead it would open it fully.
After that many countries will feel that it is their time to take back bits and pieces they feel are theirs from Russia.
Russia will soon be everyones punching bag.
We want St Petersburg and Vyborg Fortress back just as an example.
Back to the Ukrainian Frontline now, even though I really enjoy new Frontlines developping.
Robotyne
There are now clear signs that Russia is preparing to fall back fully to the Second Surivikin Line from the first one.
This is an absolute necessity now that Ukraine has punched a 10km wide hole in number one and are rolling the rest back up..
Russias last hope was the massive "But" Fortress, as that one fell they lost the chance to keep the onslaught down and towards the West.
Towards the East it was already a lost cause as they got driven out of Verbove (Ukraine cleared it, but has not fully taken control).
Ocheretuvate to Tokmak
This is where the Second Surovikin Line runs.
This line is already manned with the main defence being around Tokmak, but with a strong manned fortification network around Ocheretuvate.
What is truly surprising is that it seems like Russia is not sending any new troops to the Second Surovikin Line.
It seems like they intend to hold it with the troops that are already there, and the troops that are now falling back.
The troops in situ are of lower quality, and the troops falling back are broken and have lost most of their heavy equipment.
I would have expected Russia to send the new "elite" army group troops from Luhansk directly to reinforce this all important defence line.
Instead they are all moving to Melitopol.
In Melitopol they will loose all manouvre space, and they can only reinforce from the Southern side of Tokmak under heavy artillery fire (that I am quite sure that Ukraine will provide), it also leaves Ocheretuvate completely without the possibility to receive reinforcements since Berdyansk is relatively without troops, and same goes for Mariupol for that matter.
Conversely it also makes it impossible for Russia to rapidly reinforce Berdyansk and Mariupol of needs arise.
Staromlynivka
There are reports that the fighting for Zavitne Bazhannya are hard, but progressing according to plan. Ukrainian advance units are already encircling the village, and preparatory artillery work is done at increasing severity on Staromlynivka itself.
Vuhledar
The advances towards Staromlynivka has already undercut the T0509 road towards the West counted from Vuhledar.
This has given the Second Tank Army Group the opportunity to roll out once more from behind Vuhledar to start attacking Pavlivka.
This ended up in a true tank battle, the results was not good for the Russians and explain the almost ridiculous tank losses yesterday. Out of the 29 tanks lost 21 was in the Vuhledar direction.
Russia lost two T72s, the rest was T55s...
Ukraine fielded 20T72s and 10 T84 Oplots and a ******** of artillery...
Ukraine had not a single tank lost, and two that was pulled out after losing their tracks.
For those that do not know it, the T84 Oplots are on par with Leo 2 A4s, so far better than the Russian crapola.
Unbeknownst to most Ukraine is punching out 2 newbuild Oplots per month now from their production line in Kharkiv...
Ukraine has now full control of the part North of the River, and are busy crossing the small river into Pavlivka proper.
Vuhledar is a part that has cost Russia a lot of heavy equipment in the last year.
The place is littered with the hulks of the best Russia had, and now it is littered with the oldest Russia had.
And it is gonna get worse, because it is here that Russia are hauling those Stalin era IS-10 tanks."
there's more that I can't post, but think range increase to 1500km for Ukraine, and what that will do.
www.forbes.com
