The end?

Disgruntled chum.

"I am not a happy camper today.
There are 3 reasons for this, all of them political.

The first one is Germany being a bad actor.
Not only have they not cleared tanks, but they have also not delivered as promised.
Just one example, they promised a Patriot system to Ukraine, this was a lie. It stopped in Poland, and it is not gonna move anytime soon. They are also witholding a lot more.
This is why the Netherlands had to pledge a second Patriot system.

Secondly, someone better talk to Estonia before they start a war that they can't even participate in.
First they promised all their western artillery to Ukraine, this is just foolhardy bravado, and increases the strain on Sweden, Finland and Poland to defend them. Not a wise choice.
Then they got into a spat with Russia, that Russia started. Anyway, both sides are closing their embassies. Something that have a nasty habbit of ending up with bullets flying.
Then they bloody went and probably started a war.
Without consulting with the other two Baltic nations, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland or Denmark they decided to extend their territorial water, and to forbid Russian ships to move through there. Complete with inspections of ships etcetera...
Absolutely beautiful, we have to fight a war they can't fight.
Meh...

Thirdly, Erdögan just announced that we will not be allowed into NATO.
Sweden is about to go apeshit bonkers with Turkey in so many nasty ways it is impossible right now to understand.
Turkey will end up on a dungheap after this, we never forget, we never forgive. For the next 100 years we will make the life of Turkey into a living hell.
And we will still end up in NATO, albeit a few months later.

So, gloriously monumental MEH!!! is in order today.

Islands in the Stream
Hidden behind the news from Kreminna/Svatove, Bakhmut, Soledar, Belarus, Russian Offensives, Vamoosing Leopards and Zhaporizhzhia, something has started that has mainly been missed by most.
That is that Ukraine a week ago slowly started to increase their artillery attacks in Southern Kherson.
A bit every day, but the increase was steady.
Methodically they are hammering out bases, command posts, depots, artillery systems, etcetera.
It got so bad that in true Russian fashion the commanders abandoned their troops.

Here I would like to get back to the position at Kinburn Spit.
It is fitting in with this strategy, to slowly build up force over time.
Same goes with those small units left behind unnoticed as our favourite colonel galumphed about behind the lines for a short stint. It was cover for leaving special forces units for a long mission to do sabotage and spot enemy positions.

Two days ago something new started, Ukraine moved in counterfire artillery and counterartillery radars, and demolished the Russian artillery that was sitting on the islands in the delta of river Dnipro.
At point blank range for artillery (7km), there was not much the Russians could do more than to die.
Today Ukraine took out a couple of river boats used by the Russians, and continued to hammer anything Russian on the Islands.
Fun part, the Russian river boats was classified as a counter-attack, this means that the Ukrainians now are on the islands.

Now, about 5 months ago Ukraine received quite a bit of armoured river boats, if memory serves there was about 100 of them.
And they have received a ridiculous amount of bridging equipment, that is obviously not gonna work across the Dnipro, but it will work over the smaller rivers and tributaries in the Delta.

Kherson
I have as you remember always argued that an amphibious assault across into Kherson would make so much sense if the goal is to take Crimea by autumn.
And this is exactly how I would do it.
Hammer the Russian defence on the islands, take them in rapid amphibious landings covered by artillery from the high ground on the Ukrainian side of Dnipro, pull up barges from ports down stream in the night behind the islands.
Put on bridging equipment and heavy equipment and start bridging all the way to firm land.
There are 5 different roads that can be taken this way.
Create a bridgehead in Southern Kherson and just pump in heavy equipment as fast as humanly possible behind the artillery screen of longer range western artillery and missiles.
Hammer straight down for the landspit to Crimea, spread out and clear Kherson to the West, push towards the East to get a safe zone.
Blow up the Kersh Bridge.
And sit down and do some creative Borstjing of the Russian defences of the Crimean landspit until it is time for the summer offensive, blow through the landspit (probably with a few amphibious elements again.
And then start to gnaw on Crimea until it is time for the autumn offensive, then take the entire shebang.

I am slowly becoming ever more certain that his is what will happen is some form.
It does not exclude cutting the northern logistics route through Luhansk, but liberating the entirety of Luhansk just creates an enormous salient surrounded on 3 sides with Russian held frontlines.

Donetsk is cute and would make them hopping mad, but it also does not really lead anywhere.
Zhaporizhzhia and takin Melitopol and Tokmak and going down to Berdiansk would also put them into a giant **** salient with Russians being able to relentlessly attack them from 3 directions at the same time.

Kherson would give a Landspit to hold, and artillery would shut that down rapidly, and East towards Melitopol. And in that direction the new armour would have a field day with the Russians in the open terrain.
They could probably push all the way towards Melitopol over time, and then it would be Ukraine having the Russians in A giant arsed salient and be able to push down from the North.

It is also the spot that is furthest away from any Russian reinforcements.
It would take weeks for Russia to move those newly trained equiped troops down there, and there is nothing else available for Russia.
The rest is occupied by their own offensives, and Ukrainian liberation offensives.

Conclusion
If we see continued heavy activity lasting weeks it is a dead certainty that they will go ahead with this.
And with the large Russian offensive seemingly cancelled I have a warm and fuzzy feeling that Ukraine is about to interpret payback in the most literal way possible.
I think they will start the big offensive on the 24th of February if weather allows, otherwise as near to that as possible.

That should give my favourite colonel ample time to finish dawdling with Kreminna and Svatove.
She is just being careful with the civilians in Kreminna, the battle could be over in a day if she really pushed things.
Let us say a week, then a week of resting.
Two weeks to get warm again in the CV90 clothes and haul **** southwards and do what she does best in life, slam right into a hotspot and break through without any niceties whatsoever.
Especially since the existing artillery would by then have done the legwork and her Archers and Himars could do precission sniping to keep the crossing safe by outranging and outhitting anything Russian.
She would just leapfrog the islands on pontoon bridges and start to spread pain in the Russian posterior, something she is uniquely good at.

I will leave it at that."

Plus an addendum to the previous missive in answer to questions about the number of article exorting Ukraine to wait.

"The waiting articles are carefully planted, Ukraine is in a better position than generally believed.
Nothing has changed for them since the big Luhansk and Kherson advances, if anything they are by now stronger.
And the Ramstein8 package is amply enough for a very hard offensive, and Ukraine is already trained on a lot of the stuff.
Let us just say that my favourite colonel had a couple of thousend collegues going around in Europe and the US to train.
I was just lucky to ge the best one of them. 🙂

It is the contrasting one that is true.
Without the big mobilisation Russia is over-stretched and they really do lack equipment.
They know they are in **** creek, and that it is just becoming more brown and smelly by the day.
Remember that every clear day we count every single piece of equipment Russia has, and we get figures of what Ukraine has on almost a daily basis.
So, I always knew the accurate numbers down to almost the individual tank on each side.
This is why I say that Russia is in an abysmal place, and they should defend and not go on any offensives. Not that it makes a lot of a difference, Ukraine has a tremendous artillery advantage due to range and precission.
Both sides fire around 2 500 shells per day, but Ukraine has a 10:1 kill ratio over the Russians due to precission and range.

Russia is longterm effed even if Ukraine would not perform an offensive, they could win the war on Borstjing alone.
The only reason for an offensive is to cut the war short and limit civilian casualties."

And in answer to @Lefty, current Russian intelligence is not a lot better than before, but he qualifies that by saying it wasn't nearly as bad as reported last year (more bad decisions made politically, carried out by commanders).
But he is working on something that, when he finishes writing ... in the near future, that might explain and answer your queries more fully. But he has to present it as a briefing first.
 
@Lefty Here you go.

"I was asked if Russia now has better intelligence (information, not brain power...) and have adapted to the situation.
This is really interesting, with both no and yes as an answer.

Intelligence
They do not have better information than previously, if anything it is now worse.
But, let me here poke a hole in the myth that they had s***y information gathering services.
They did not, remember Naryshkin trying to protest against the war in that live broadcast...
They knew amply well that things was not as good as they wished.

The latest attack in Zhaporizhzhia is evidence of their intelligence not getting better.
They believed and claimed openly that Ukraine had moved away their forces placed there for a possible spring offensive.
In reality all forces was still there, and Russia ran straight into them and was annihilated.
And, we see the same all over the place.
This is more pointing towards a degrading of Intelligence assets due to Ukraine having caught, killed or pushed out the Russian intelligence assets inside of Ukraine.

Adaptation
Before the war Gerasimov was in high regards as a commander and military strategist.
He was seen as the man who would revolutionise and modernise the Russian army and strategy.
Gerasimov even wrote a very well regarded book on Combined Arms Manouvre Strategy, it is obligatory reading in the western officer schools.
Let us just say that we have been surprised for the last 11 months that nothing like this was seen.

Combined Arms Tactics is when you integrate artillery, armour, infantry and air force into a seemless and simultaneous attack force in an offensive. Zhukov invented this concept in his campaigns.
The US is very good at it, and every Western army trains this relentlessly.

We now believe that it was due to infighting in the Russian Military that caused this to not happen, especially the air force flat out refused to do it after initial high losses during the war.

Now that Gerasimov is directly controlling the war on the ground Combined Arms Strategy is back with a vengeance.
In the last few days we have seen the air force performing combat missions over the front line on a broad scale.
We also see infantry combined with armour working in combination like never before while planes are busing around trying to bomb things.

If this had happened earlier there would have been problems.
But, Ukraine is far better at it, especially the infantry & armour manouvre part.
Then we have the problem of equipment for Russia, they do not have enough armour left to make a dent in the Ukrainian defences, even with air support.

Ukraine on the other hand is now operating under what is the densest air defence in the history of mankind.
So, the hapless Russians are blown out of the sky at an alarming rate with helicopters and attack jets dropping like manure over the Ukrainian fields. Yesterday Russia lost ten Helicopters and airplanes. In a single day. The day before they lost 5.
These numbers are totally unsustainable for them.
Russia did these changes to late to help them.

I will give Gerasimov his due.
I am surprised at the speed with which he got the Russian army to change and to start using their official doctrine for once.
I see Gerasimovs fingerprints all over the place, and at a speed I frankly did not think Russia could change.
But, he no longer have the gear to sustain this. He is all but out of armour and artillery, and the air force will rapidly be depleted.

Another change he did was to pretty much put a sock in Prigozhin.
He cancelled the prisoner pressganging, instead he has sent the prisoners to the industry.
He is relying on the original remaining fairly trained professional soldiers, and using Mobiks as integrated reinforcement.
Wagner is only used as disposable schock units.
And Prigozhin's star is all of a sudden sinking like a stone.

Prigozhin was always Putin's creature, and with him effectively gone Prigozhing is yesterdays news.
Not even Russia tried to protest now that Putin's death is openly claimed in the West and by Ukraine.
Russia seems happy to have "Putin" and does not bother with lying about the real one any longer.
I find this very interesting.
And to rub it in, both Ukraine and the West told Lavrov, Peskov and Naryshkin that the Putin that will sign an eventual agreement must be able to go through a DNA-test prior to signing the deal.
Lavrov did not answer.
Naryshkin laughed nervously.
Peskov said that they would come up with something before that.
Interesting.

Anyway, Intelligence is lacking in Russia, both of the cerebral type and the information type.
Russia is adapting, but to late and to little to make any big difference.
If anything it is just leading to squandering the remaining resources even faster.

In a couple of days there will be a very special set of thoughts.
I will give my opinion about WHY Russia started the war.
I think everyone will find that interesting."
 
konstantin (the youtuber) was saying last night the war was started to seize the resources of ukraine, he's heard via an oligarch-type that documents exist sharing the resources out between them.
 
konstantin (the youtuber) was saying last night the war was started to seize the resources of ukraine, he's heard via an oligarch-type that documents exist sharing the resources out between them.
Yes, I watched that too. Very interesting, and it's certainly true of the Prigozhin obsession with Bakhmut and Solnedar. I think our man has come up with something slightly different... but he won't tell me what until he has done his official work.
 
konstantin (the youtuber) was saying last night the war was started to seize the resources of ukraine, he's heard via an oligarch-type that documents exist sharing the resources out between them.
It is of course pretty obviously the plan, as anyone whose taken even a slight interest in news in the last 30 years would know, but of course good to hear that there is potentially corroborating evidence. that level of systematic corruption would usually lead to sloppiness like not covering paper trails of wrong doing.
 
Here I would like to get back to the position at Kinburn Spit.
It is fitting in with this strategy, to slowly build up force over time.
Same goes with those small units left behind unnoticed as our favourite colonel galumphed about behind the lines for a short stint. It was cover for leaving special forces units for a long mission to do sabotage and spot enemy positions.

Two days ago something new started, Ukraine moved in counterfire artillery and counterartillery radars, and demolished the Russian artillery that was sitting on the islands in the delta of river Dnipro.
At point blank range for artillery (7km), there was not much the Russians could do more than to die.
Today Ukraine took out a couple of river boats used by the Russians, and continued to hammer anything Russian on the Islands.
Fun part, the Russian river boats was classified as a counter-attack, this means that the Ukrainians now are on the islands.

Now, about 5 months ago Ukraine received quite a bit of armoured river boats, if memory serves there was about 100 of them.
And they have received a ridiculous amount of bridging equipment, that is obviously not gonna work across the Dnipro, but it will work over the smaller rivers and tributaries in the Delta.

Kherson
I have as you remember always argued that an amphibious assault across into Kherson would make so much sense if the goal is to take Crimea by autumn.
And this is exactly how I would do it.
Hammer the Russian defence on the islands, take them in rapid amphibious landings covered by artillery from the high ground on the Ukrainian side of Dnipro, pull up barges from ports down stream in the night behind the islands.
Put on bridging equipment and heavy equipment and start bridging all the way to firm land.
There are 5 different roads that can be taken this way.
Create a bridgehead in Southern Kherson and just pump in heavy equipment as fast as humanly possible behind the artillery screen of longer range western artillery and missiles.
Hammer straight down for the landspit to Crimea, spread out and clear Kherson to the West, push towards the East to get a safe zone.
Blow up the Kersh Bridge.
And sit down and do some creative Borstjing of the Russian defences of the Crimean landspit until it is time for the summer offensive, blow through the landspit (probably with a few amphibious elements again.
And then start to gnaw on Crimea until it is time for the autumn offensive, then take the entire shebang.

I am slowly becoming ever more certain that his is what will happen is some form.
It does not exclude cutting the northern logistics route through Luhansk, but liberating the entirety of Luhansk just creates an enormous salient surrounded on 3 sides with Russian held frontlines.

Donetsk is cute and would make them hopping mad, but it also does not really lead anywhere.
Zhaporizhzhia and takin Melitopol and Tokmak and going down to Berdiansk would also put them into a giant **** salient with Russians being able to relentlessly attack them from 3 directions at the same time.

Kherson would give a Landspit to hold, and artillery would shut that down rapidly, and East towards Melitopol. And in that direction the new armour would have a field day with the Russians in the open terrain.
They could probably push all the way towards Melitopol over time, and then it would be Ukraine having the Russians in A giant arsed salient and be able to push down from the North.

It is also the spot that is furthest away from any Russian reinforcements.
It would take weeks for Russia to move those newly trained equiped troops down there, and there is nothing else available for Russia.
The rest is occupied by their own offensives, and Ukrainian liberation offensives.

Conclusion
If we see continued heavy activity lasting weeks it is a dead certainty that they will go ahead with this.
And with the large Russian offensive seemingly cancelled I have a warm and fuzzy feeling that Ukraine is about to interpret payback in the most literal way possible.
I think they will start the big offensive on the 24th of February if weather allows, otherwise as near to that as possible.

That should give my favourite colonel ample time to finish dawdling with Kreminna and Svatove.
She is just being careful with the civilians in Kreminna, the battle could be over in a day if she really pushed things.
Let us say a week, then a week of resting.
Two weeks to get warm again in the CV90 clothes and haul **** southwards and do what she does best in life, slam right into a hotspot and break through without any niceties whatsoever.
Especially since the existing artillery would by then have done the legwork and her Archers and Himars could do precission sniping to keep the crossing safe by outranging and outhitting anything Russian.
She would just leapfrog the islands on pontoon bridges and start to spread pain in the Russian posterior, something she is uniquely good at.

I will leave it at that."

Plus an addendum to the previous missive in answer to questions about the number of article exorting Ukraine to wait.

"The waiting articles are carefully planted, Ukraine is in a better position than generally believed.
Nothing has changed for them since the big Luhansk and Kherson advances, if anything they are by now stronger.
And the Ramstein8 package is amply enough for a very hard offensive, and Ukraine is already trained on a lot of the stuff.
Let us just say that my favourite colonel had a couple of thousend collegues going around in Europe and the US to train.
I was just lucky to ge the best one of them. 🙂

It is the contrasting one that is true.
Without the big mobilisation Russia is over-stretched and they really do lack equipment.
They know they are in **** creek, and that it is just becoming more brown and smelly by the day.
Remember that every clear day we count every single piece of equipment Russia has, and we get figures of what Ukraine has on almost a daily basis.
So, I always knew the accurate numbers down to almost the individual tank on each side.
This is why I say that Russia is in an abysmal place, and they should defend and not go on any offensives. Not that it makes a lot of a difference, Ukraine has a tremendous artillery advantage due to range and precission.
Both sides fire around 2 500 shells per day, but Ukraine has a 10:1 kill ratio over the Russians due to precission and range.

Russia is longterm effed even if Ukraine would not perform an offensive, they could win the war on Borstjing alone.
The only reason for an offensive is to cut the war short and limit civilian casualties."

And in answer to @Lefty, current Russian intelligence is not a lot better than before, but he qualifies that by saying it wasn't nearly as bad as reported last year (more bad decisions made politically, carried out by commanders).
But he is working on something that, when he finishes writing ... in the near future, that might explain and answer your queries more fully. But he has to present it as a briefing first.

Funnily enough I was thinking about rivers and bridges last night after listening to a discussion about pontoons and bailey bridges in northern europe in 1944/45, how brilliant these designs were and how adept the engineers became. I have no idea if there are many small rivers to cross in eastern Ukraine. Its steppe isn't it, so I'd have thought quite flat and not many small canal type waterways as in the low countries?
 
Funnily enough I was thinking about rivers and bridges last night after listening to a discussion about pontoons and bailey bridges in northern europe in 1944/45, how brilliant these designs were and how adept the engineers became. I have no idea if there are many small rivers to cross in eastern Ukraine. Its steppe isn't it, so I'd have thought quite flat and not many small canal type waterways as in the low countries?
I had the massive luck in speaking to a Captain in an Engineers Battalion who did just that in WW2.
Bloke was in his 90s and as sharp as knive.
They built the bridges to keep the advance going in Europe, often under enemy fire and bombardment.
Fascinating stories of innovation. Something us Brits excel at.
Unsung heroes.
Lest we forget.
 
@Lefty Here you go.

"I was asked if Russia now has better intelligence (information, not brain power...) and have adapted to the situation.
This is really interesting, with both no and yes as an answer.

Intelligence
They do not have better information than previously, if anything it is now worse.
But, let me here poke a hole in the myth that they had s***y information gathering services.
They did not, remember Naryshkin trying to protest against the war in that live broadcast...
They knew amply well that things was not as good as they wished.

The latest attack in Zhaporizhzhia is evidence of their intelligence not getting better.
They believed and claimed openly that Ukraine had moved away their forces placed there for a possible spring offensive.
In reality all forces was still there, and Russia ran straight into them and was annihilated.
And, we see the same all over the place.
This is more pointing towards a degrading of Intelligence assets due to Ukraine having caught, killed or pushed out the Russian intelligence assets inside of Ukraine.

Adaptation
Before the war Gerasimov was in high regards as a commander and military strategist.
He was seen as the man who would revolutionise and modernise the Russian army and strategy.
Gerasimov even wrote a very well regarded book on Combined Arms Manouvre Strategy, it is obligatory reading in the western officer schools.
Let us just say that we have been surprised for the last 11 months that nothing like this was seen.

Combined Arms Tactics is when you integrate artillery, armour, infantry and air force into a seemless and simultaneous attack force in an offensive. Zhukov invented this concept in his campaigns.
The US is very good at it, and every Western army trains this relentlessly.

We now believe that it was due to infighting in the Russian Military that caused this to not happen, especially the air force flat out refused to do it after initial high losses during the war.

Now that Gerasimov is directly controlling the war on the ground Combined Arms Strategy is back with a vengeance.
In the last few days we have seen the air force performing combat missions over the front line on a broad scale.
We also see infantry combined with armour working in combination like never before while planes are busing around trying to bomb things.

If this had happened earlier there would have been problems.
But, Ukraine is far better at it, especially the infantry & armour manouvre part.
Then we have the problem of equipment for Russia, they do not have enough armour left to make a dent in the Ukrainian defences, even with air support.

Ukraine on the other hand is now operating under what is the densest air defence in the history of mankind.
So, the hapless Russians are blown out of the sky at an alarming rate with helicopters and attack jets dropping like manure over the Ukrainian fields. Yesterday Russia lost ten Helicopters and airplanes. In a single day. The day before they lost 5.
These numbers are totally unsustainable for them.
Russia did these changes to late to help them.

I will give Gerasimov his due.
I am surprised at the speed with which he got the Russian army to change and to start using their official doctrine for once.
I see Gerasimovs fingerprints all over the place, and at a speed I frankly did not think Russia could change.
But, he no longer have the gear to sustain this. He is all but out of armour and artillery, and the air force will rapidly be depleted.

Another change he did was to pretty much put a sock in Prigozhin.
He cancelled the prisoner pressganging, instead he has sent the prisoners to the industry.
He is relying on the original remaining fairly trained professional soldiers, and using Mobiks as integrated reinforcement.
Wagner is only used as disposable schock units.
And Prigozhin's star is all of a sudden sinking like a stone.

Prigozhin was always Putin's creature, and with him effectively gone Prigozhing is yesterdays news.
Not even Russia tried to protest now that Putin's death is openly claimed in the West and by Ukraine.
Russia seems happy to have "Putin" and does not bother with lying about the real one any longer.
I find this very interesting.
And to rub it in, both Ukraine and the West told Lavrov, Peskov and Naryshkin that the Putin that will sign an eventual agreement must be able to go through a DNA-test prior to signing the deal.
Lavrov did not answer.
Naryshkin laughed nervously.
Peskov said that they would come up with something before that.
Interesting.

Anyway, Intelligence is lacking in Russia, both of the cerebral type and the information type.
Russia is adapting, but to late and to little to make any big difference.
If anything it is just leading to squandering the remaining resources even faster.

In a couple of days there will be a very special set of thoughts.
I will give my opinion about WHY Russia started the war.
I think everyone will find that interesting."

Thanks for this.

So the field intelligence is not up to requirement.

I wonder how their intelligence is across western countries. I guess sanctions have curbed this somewhat, but they seem to always have an impressive network of well placed spies. Stalin had the atom bomb plans not long after WW2, we had the famous Cambridge spy ring, but it sounds like the baltic states and Sweden in particular have recently been finding a few. I've heard the recently jailed Peyman Kia described as the Swedish Kim Philby.

So have the recent discoveries of these spies and interrogation and prosecution made a difference or do western agencies operate on the idea that most of what they know, Russia will know still?
 
I had the massive luck in speaking to a Captain in an Engineers Battalion who did just that in WW2.
Bloke was in his 90s and as sharp as knive.
They built the bridges to keep the advance going in Europe, often under enemy fire and bombardment.
Fascinating stories of innovation. Something us Brits excel at.
Unsung heroes.
Lest we forget.

Quite. The celebrated relief of the Ox & Bucks & Paras at Pegasus Bridge by Lord Lovat forgets that there was a unit of sappers that reached the bridge first.
 
Funnily enough I was thinking about rivers and bridges last night after listening to a discussion about pontoons and bailey bridges in northern europe in 1944/45, how brilliant these designs were and how adept the engineers became. I have no idea if there are many small rivers to cross in eastern Ukraine. Its steppe isn't it, so I'd have thought quite flat and not many small canal type waterways as in the low countries?

They're mainly going to come into play across the delta, but also further up the river. Seems Strelkov has spotted the plan. One special forces recce unit was, unfortunately, taken out by Russian forces who happened upon them. It is to be hoped that the Russian command hates Strelkov enough to doubt his wisdom (because he has been spot on in fact). Short post to come later.

Quick edit. Seems Scholz may have budged. A believe it when you see it moment but it seems Leopards go free. Waiting on confirmation.
 
They're mainly going to come into play across the delta, but also further up the river. Seems Strelkov has spotted the plan. One special forces recce unit was, unfortunately, taken out by Russian forces who happened upon them. It is to be hoped that the Russian command hates Strelkov enough to doubt his wisdom (because he has been spot on in fact). Short post to come later.

Quick edit. Seems Scholz may have budged. A believe it when you see it moment but it seems Leopards go free. Waiting on confirmation.
 
"Decided" more like seriously pressured and no doubt a lot of political veiled threats......and also with the protests in Germany a lot of self interest / preservation.
 
Thanks for this.

So the field intelligence is not up to requirement.

I wonder how their intelligence is across western countries. I guess sanctions have curbed this somewhat, but they seem to always have an impressive network of well placed spies. Stalin had the atom bomb plans not long after WW2, we had the famous Cambridge spy ring, but it sounds like the baltic states and Sweden in particular have recently been finding a few. I've heard the recently jailed Peyman Kia described as the Swedish Kim Philby.

So have the recent discoveries of these spies and interrogation and prosecution made a difference or do western agencies operate on the idea that most of what they know, Russia will know still?
Just after world war 2, the USSR got the Russian version of the scouts or guides to give a wooden plaque to the the new US ambassador. He hung it on his wall but it had some kind of radio transmitter in it and was used to spy on the ambassador, I watched a video on it a while back on YOUTUBE. It was powered by radio waves of some kind and almost undetectable, I can't quite remember but I'm sure it was only found by accident. So even 70+ years ago the Russians had ways of spying. You can watch videos on it on YouTube normally called something along the lines of 'US seal bug cold war'.
 
As I understand it, the German parliament gave the go ahead against Scholz will. But Good news. Close on two hundred Leo 2s pledged in under two hours (Canada leading the way with 40).

Anyway, an update, then an update on the update.

"
This is just a short...

I reacted today on something that Strelkov/Girkin wrote.
He claimed that Russian forces had tried to perform a landing across the Dnipro near Nova Kakhovka.
He correctly deducted that Ukraine is most likely about to perform an amphibious attack into Kherson.
I hope that the general staff hates him enough to not realise that he is quite correct.

I checked this, and he is absolutely correct, Russia stopped a landing.
Either he did not know, or did not want to say it, but Ukraine has performed at least two dozen landing since yesterday in probing attacks and landing special forces along the entire Dnipro towards Southern Kherson.

We now have confirmation that Russia has postponed or even cancelled the next big mobilisation wave due to lack of equipment and ammunition.
This has cancelled any attempt of a new large scale reinvasion of Ukraine, but smaller offensives will come in near time.
Russia has definitely already ratcheted up their pushing in most parts of Ukraine.

Russia is now moving troops out of Belarus due to not being welcome any longer, Uncle Luka seem to play a new game somehow. More about that as we understand better what he is up to.
The troops are believed to be moved in to reinforce around Kreminna/Svatove and the next defensive line in Luhansk."

and later

"Ukraine have sneaked in a sneaky start on the Kherson Campaign.
They have taken most of the islands in the stream.

Russia has started to send lightly armed reinforcements without heavy gear to Kherson. All their heavy gear is either occupied along the front, or in Belarus. They seem to have nothing freely available for now.
The push at Soledar has stopped, same around Bakhmut. Stopping them would free up equipment down to Kherson, but it would take Russia two weeks to get that equipment in place. Belarus is 3-4 weeks away.
It is a bloody long way around.

Now the waiting starts again...

My take is that Ukraine will go for a bridgehead and extend that while they wait for the new gear to come in, they have enough for one big push to clear a big and stable bridge head."

Advance warning, may contain grimness. Ukraine troops storming islands.
 
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As I understand it, the German parliament gave the go ahead against Scholz will. But Good news. Close on two hundred Leo 2s pledged in under two hours (Canada leading the way with 40).

Anyway, an update, then an update on the update.

"
This is just a short...

I reacted today on something that Strelkov/Girkin wrote.
He claimed that Russian forces had tried to perform a landing across the Dnipro near Nova Kakhovka.
He correctly deducted that Ukraine is most likely about to perform an amphibious attack into Kherson.
I hope that the general staff hates him enough to not realise that he is quite correct.

I checked this, and he is absolutely correct, Russia stopped a landing.
Either he did not know, or did not want to say it, but Ukraine has performed at least two dozen landing since yesterday in probing attacks and landing special forces along the entire Dnipro towards Southern Kherson.

We now have confirmation that Russia has postponed or even cancelled the next big mobilisation wave due to lack of equipment and ammunition.
This has cancelled any attempt of a new large scale reinvasion of Ukraine, but smaller offensives will come in near time.
Russia has definitely already ratcheted up their pushing in most parts of Ukraine.

Russia is now moving troops out of Belarus due to not being welcome any longer, Uncle Luka seem to play a new game somehow. More about that as we understand better what he is up to.
The troops are believed to be moved in to reinforce around Kreminna/Svatove and the next defensive line in Luhansk."

and later

"Ukraine have sneaked in a sneaky start on the Kherson Campaign.
They have taken most of the islands in the stream.

Russia has started to send lightly armed reinforcements without heavy gear to Kherson. All their heavy gear is either occupied along the front, or in Belarus. They seem to have nothing freely available for now.
The push at Soledar has stopped, same around Bakhmut. Stopping them would free up equipment down to Kherson, but it would take Russia two weeks to get that equipment in place. Belarus is 3-4 weeks away.
It is a bloody long way around.

Now the waiting starts again...

My take is that Ukraine will go for a bridgehead and extend that while they wait for the new gear to come in, they have enough for one big push to clear a big and stable bridge head."

Advance warning, may contain grimness. Ukraine troops storming islands.
Maybe little Luka in Belarus has heard that Putin had now been demoted to corpse status, and don't want to get any more involved due to potential further isolation or repercussions from within Belarus . From the start the Belarus people(from what I have read) didn't support them being involved in the war. And if Luka's puppet master and minder is no longer there to dangle the strings and add protection it might make Luka feel pretty vulnerable.
 
Quick question - what is the big deal with the Leopard tanks? Are they the best available, German engineering etc etc? Why the apparent desperation for the Germans to send them to Ukraine? Are the Challengers etc not as good?
 
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