LongLeftFlank

The fall of Yampil, and a [possible] prisoner 'bag' of UKR frontline troops, is disquieting, not just for the reasons @Combatintman and @Huba cite above. This may be the first time since the (surprise) opening of the war that the Russians have successfully executed a battalion scale flanking operation that the UA didn't either bushwack, block or evade. In spite of all the blunders, we all kind of knew their regular units were going to get tactically 'smarter' over time. I think they're starting to show it now. 'Muddy guys' free-ranging over the steppes with rockets seems like it is no longer going to confound the battlespace the way it has to date. ....So the pressure is on Ukraine now to move itself swiftly to the next level of combined arms warfare that their enemy can't handle.

I always have this clip in the back of my mind when I'm on a range....

[LLF preens modestly] Thanks, but no, I am merely a humble scribe. The heavy lifting was done by others. Anyway, this phase too will soon be overtaken by events.

Ground level view of Russian incoming.

Since I am also curious about the state of play of the slo-mo "Potemkin" offensive against Slovyansk, I went back over the last 90 pages of this thread (only 15 April!) and pulled out some of the key assessments made by our esteemed experts. All hail and praise unto them! 1. @The_Capt scans the terrain for the Izyum axis (page 532) 2. @Combatintman maps out the potential axes for a 'pincer' attack (page 548) 3. @Haiduk confirms the attack (page 553) 4. @Kinophile shows us vividly how exposed are the northern approaches to Slovyansk (page 556) 5. @Combatintman revises the axes in light of the actual Russian advances (p557) 6. @Combatintman estimates RA force strength around Izyum at 16 BTGs not the 22 advertised 7. @The_Capt floats the interesting hypothesis that this is a 'look busy but don't bleed too much' offensive. 8. @Haiduk updates the actions around Izyum as of 23 Apr (p593) 9. @Combatintman evaluates the Engagement Area around Dovenkhe (Izyum-Slovyansk road) 10. @The_Capt assesses the state of play: "using BTGs to try and find a hole in the UA defence instead of a recon screen" 11. @Haiduk's latest update, noting RA gains in contested Zarichne village and a flanking operation at Yampi (which has netted them some UA prisoners)(p.610) 12. This....

Over on the left, NakedCapitalism has gone similarly far up their own posteriors, and no, Putin isn't funding them. People, even smart ones, don't need to be bribed or brainwashed to believe 'alternative facts'. They cherry pick them because they work backwards from a certain world view.

A friend of mine who's in a position to know tells me over a thousand British specialists have embedded with UA since March. A lot of them passed through previously as advisers post 2014 and have volunteered to 'retire' and contract in because they believe in . Only the Kurds command a comparable degree of respect. A fair number of French SOFers there as well.

In 3 separate locations across town? That's quite the smoking habit, lol! But Stalin was continuously shooting 'spies, saboteurs and wreckers.' Like, by the million. So maybe it's yet another of those dark gloomy Russian national quirks. Got to warm up those long winters. Not like those decadent Uzbeks, who will never amount to much....

So they are reduced to hoping either that the UA has trouble attacking them in fixed positions and/or that the West will strongarm Ukraine into a ceasefire that leaves them with (wasteland) 'facts on the ground'?

Pretty sickening. But this speaks a lot louder.... Lukhansk calls up the Volkssturm:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/23/motivated-but-outgunned-ukrainian-soldiers-discuss-life-on-the-southern-front Paints a slightly grimmer picture than the one we've mainly been discussing, albeit likely from a (hitherto) thinly manned portion of the front. “They had three tanks on the hill and they were just shooting down at us. We just had rifles,” said Hennadiy. “We had some equipment that the Americans and Poles gave us, but it wasn’t enough to fight.” Earlier that day, the group had avoided fire from a Russian plane. “A plane came over us and bombed us a little bit. It was a bit unpleasant,” said Serhiy, with a smile. “Well, actually, not a bit, utterly unpleasant.” Another member of the group who escaped from the warehouse, Mykola, said the Russians had drones and knew exactly where their positions were.... New restrictions placed on movements of journalists south of Zaporizhzhia city seem to indicate that the situation on the southern front is worsening. According to soldiers interviewed by the Guardian, Ukrainian forces were pushed out of at least one of the three towns and villages an hour south of the city that the New York Times visited three weeks ago. The military press secretary for Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Ariefiev, said journalists were not allowed to travel to those places now, but said that this was not because the situation on the front was worsening. He said the travel restrictions were because the active phase of the war on the southern front had begun.

Take it or Galeev it. I spent a lot of time with Wallerstein back in uni (also Luttwak and Mearsheimer, but that's a different story). (as always, the rest of the thread is thought provoking and informative). I am of the view that should: a. the Russian army suffer a huge and undeniable battlefield defeat that includes their near total expulsion from the areas invaded in Feb, plus the forced (televised) surrender of some large units; b. that will trigger a Colour Revolution (with a fair bit of shooting, sadly) in Minsk, and the ascent of a Western-facing democratic regime in Belarus, harking back to the traditions of the Novgorod republic. c. At that point, I could readily see some of the Russian regions reasserting autonomy, with their own armed forces (private armies with loose official status). My own picks would be: (1) Kuban, the Russian 'sunbelt'. Krasnodar is the third largest city and an export hub. In the event Crimea does not rejoin Ukraine postwar, it would align itself with this region. The commercial culture there seems to have a more 'Southern European' feel to it (define that how you like, but it doesn't bode at all well for Moscow holding on to it). (2) The old Novgorod republic -- the Volkhov lake country east of the Baltics that culturally has a lot in common with the Balts, perhaps more than with the 'Mosculs'.... (3) Most painful of all for Moscow, the Kursk-Bryansk-Belgorod-middle Volga heartland region could stand up and demand rights to form commercial ties across its western frontiers! Would VDV units largely home based in Tula-Ryazan obey orders to suppress brother Russians in these oblasts? Or join them? (4) Predictably, everything east and south of the Urals other than a few military base towns like Vladivostok will renegotiate its relationship with Moscow; governors will become billionaire-warlords with active Chinese connivance. Putin's Moscow-St Petersburg oligarchs will no longer be able to extract gigantic rents off resource flows and their power and patronage will wither. The economies of Old Muscovy are utterly hollow once you drive away the IT technorati (who are already quickly voting with their feet and would happily move to Krasnodar). It's basically 35 million retirees, the very people who have been keenest on this stupid war. Let them rust and rot. ....Would this mean these autonomous republics areas become independent nations? Probably not at once, but the 'Russian Federation' would surely become a lot more 'Federation' and a lot less 'Russian'. But the iron fist of Moscow could at last be broken for good.

One noteworthy exception may be @Haiduk's correspondent reporting Russians also, understanding hazard of UKR mobile AT-teams, inolved more SOF and recon forces for hunting them. Especially Russians actively conduct own search in night time. I had expected this development for some time now, as organizing and sending out kill squads to stalk and ambush other infantry doesn't take much more than motivation and fieldcraft. Although this also further saps the infantry strength of the parent BTGs, taking away their best fighters albeit for an essential task.

Breathe in those mephitic fumes deeply, sons of Allah (or was it Ahmat)? Woe to every backbiter, slanderer, who amasses wealth ˹greedily˺ and counts it repeatedly, thinking that their wealth will make them immortal! Not at all! Such a person will certainly be thrown into the Crusher. And what will make you realize what the Crusher is? ˹It is˺ Allah’s kindled Fire, which rages over the hearts. It will be sealed over them, tightly secured˺ with long braces. -- Sura 104, the Holy Qu'ran

Yup. IV.1. The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy

Someone on here a while back was talking about how U.S. Grant or one of the Civil War generals suddenly realized the enemy commanders were as scared of him as he was of them. At some point, the UA is going to need to take back their lost lands and eject the RA. There are always good reasons for waiting, but the other team isn't idle. I disagree with the view that the Russian war machine gets notably weaker with the mere passage of time, bleeding out from sanctions and whatnot. I mean, even if it does at a macro level, that weakness will take some time to become meaningful on the battlefield. In the meantime, they are still humans; even Russians learn and improvise, especially when sheer survival is at stake. At *this moment*, RA frontline combat power and C4I (or whatever it is now) is as shoddy, their vehicles, ammo stocks and ready reserves depleted, their air and missile forces overstrained, their troop morale as low as it is going to be in the foreseeable future. A 60 day respite is a crucial breathing space that could make a UA attack far costlier. Don't let them off the ropes, Ukraine! they are 4x as big a country. The stakes are existential.

You know I love you, man! 1. And you, and the other refutations above, all make sense. 2. Which is why I continue to believe that once the Russian offensives between Izyum and Rubizhne are confirmed to be a fizzle, the UA needs to go over to the attack, hard. [Since I think we just all agreed it can!] Now, not later. 3. IMHO (and I think @Battlefront.com identified the same sector), they should hit -- HARD -- along that lately static front between Zaphorizhe (Dniepr bend) and Donetsk. Which the UA can get large forces to and the Russians can't! 4. If they can hit within 2 weeks -- not 60 days! -- I could readily see those crappy RA regiments collapsing and fleeing in disorder. 2 months from now, not so sure. 5. While 'Stavka' struggles to rush in reinforcements or even air support. On the left, their Kherson army is bisected by the Dniepr. On the right, the Donbass 'republics' are bled white, an empty shell. And the Azov sea is at their back. 6. So if they have the combat power, the UA can roll the muzhiks right back down to Azov and annihilate them. Whole units taken prisoner and miserably phoning their mommas in Saratov. Retake Mariupol and relieve the heroic defenders. That will be an earthquake felt in Moscow and right across Mother Russia.... My thesis.

So, merely cuz lying orcs/RTtrolls, feeding the same 5 loons (Ritter, Helmer, MoonofAB, Saker, etc.) in turn cited endlessly by Western CT addicts at both ends of the political horseshoe. ...it necessarily follows that Ukraine cannot possibly be encountering critical shortages of: 1. vehicles 2. fuels 3. ammo 4. skilled manpower? ....Hmm, talk about sticking one's head in the sand. And you're about the last person on here I expected to hear this from. I am not asking anyone to prove a negative here. I am just trying to pierce the protective fog the UA has brilliantly wrapped around itself. Because I am deeply worried that letting the Russians get their breath back and dig in in place rather than continuing to keep them running around fighting fires over the next 60 days is *extremely* risky. That's at a Sun Tzu level. UNLESS the ability of UA to sustain offensive operations is in fact a lot less than we believe.

OK team. I am going to join @Erwinin the Devil's Advocate space here. I have now spent some time browsing the 'pro-Russian' sites (and I feel like I need a shower) -- so you don't have to. I shall pass over all their 'Alternative Facts' around the will and condition of Russia and the Russian forces and present only their view of what is happening to the Ukrainian forces on the ground. Fact based refutations preferred, please. Spluttering invective about 'lying Orcs' is of no practical use here. THESIS: In spite of a Western media propaganda campaign and some notable Russian failures, Russia is methodically degrading Ukraine’s military capacity. 1. Ukraine is running out of AFVs and other vehicles This is both due to combat losses and logistical/fuel bite. 1.1 UA is now 95% a leg infantry army, including new militia formations. While Ukraine spins this as an innovation, such forces are capable of only shallow local attacks. 1.2 A huge portion of UA mechanised forces abandoned its AFVs and artillery under heavy RA attack in the first week of hostilities, becoming pure infantry formations. 1.3 UA is largely using passenger vehicles for transport and supply. Priority for remaining army transport has gone to keeping its dwindling artillery arm in the field. 1.4 Russia has taken out most repair facilities in East Ukraine. Damaged vehicles must be shipped long distances, or abroad, to be repaired and refit. Russian videos show UA vehicles that have been cannibalized for parts and then abandoned. 2. Ukraine is running out of fuels and POL: 2.1 Only 1/3 of Ukraine's gas stations are still open. The civilian economy is in rapid decline and supply chains are breaking down, especially outside the large cities. 2.2 Ukraine no longer has any functioning refineries. Tank farms have also been hard hit. 2.3 Fuels must be trucked to the front in civilian tankers after being railed in from abroad at the expense of other cargo. Tankers cannot reach Odessa and the Rumanians have not been overly cooperative. 3. Ukraine is running short of weapons and ammo 3.1 UA is consuming weapons in a week that the US thought would last them a month. In general, its militia troops have very poor fire discipline in spite of their high enthusiasm. 3.2 Clever video editing makes Ukrainian missiles and artillery look far more accurate and deadly than they are. In fact, several Javelin hits are needed to take out a MBT. Stugna has only a 1 in 5 hit rate and its kill rate vs. MBTs is very poor. 3.3 Western heavy artillery, with unfamiliar calibres and loads, is proving very hard for even experienced UA gunners to deploy and use effectively. 3.4 Russia seems able to jam Switchblade drones and almost no Bayraktars remain; the UA reserves them only for strategic missions like the one against Moskva. 3.5 Russia has been making very effective use of its cruise missile assets, destroying key facilities and arms stocks. It has extremely good humint from sources inside Ukraine. An entire month's supply of newly arrived Western anti-tank weapons was recently destroyed in missile strikes on 3 sites in Lvov. UA attempts to disperse these assets has thrown its logistics situation even deeper into chaos. 3.6 Local authorities (warlords) have been diverting some of the best Western weapons to equip their own militias and private armies, and also selling them on the black market. 4. Ukraine is running out of capable soldiers. 4.1 About 10% of the UA standing army on day 1 have been lost (dead/ invalided/ captured). That is a 'decimation' of its most experienced and skilled cadre, and will take as much as a year to bring back to its Feb 2022 condition. 4.2 Widespread draft evasion has occurred, especially in the Russian speaking east and also among urban educated youth. Only a few thousand Ukrainian expatriates have returned to serve, and the ballyhooed wave of Western volunteers has not materialised in meaningful numbers. 4.3 UA replacements are being sent into action with very little training. Specialists and skilled technicians are in critically short supply and veteran cadre are on the front lines, not training newcomers. 4.4 After nearly 60 days, the UA irregular infantry forces' ability to live off the land (local people and their food) is running down rapidly. Their amateur, improvised logistical chains are totally inadeqate. 4.5 In spite of UA having years to prepare stay behind forces, in the southern oblasts there have been very few incidents of partisan activity or sabotage. This indicates general acquiescence by the local population, which in large part has not evacuated (excepting active combat zones). **** Again, for avoidance of doubt I make no endorsement whatsoever of the above, so don't freekin' @ me.....

Depends on how much stuff is squirreled away in those nuclear bomb proof tunnels. Clean water, especially. ...I notice the news reports mentioned Ukraine use of AFVs in the operation to extract the 500 troops from the port. That doesn't sound to me like a force that is boiling its boots just yet. Plus, once both sides settle down to a longer siege and the 'keener' combat ready forces get posted away to other fronts, do the remaining Russians start doing a little business with the 'Azov Nazi SS'? Even selling them ammo, to buy themselves a little peace from sniping. Such things happen.

At the very least. Let's say UA can bring 2 mobile brigades and rip open the rotten idle forces (1-2 regiments) shielding the Mariupol siege. Revisiting the March battlefields around Volnovakha. Well known turf, in other words. 1. With their 'land bridge' threatened with being cut in half, I can't see the Russians being able to respond using their remaining mobile combat power around Kherson. At least not in finite time. And by all accounts, Donetsk and Lukhansk are tapped out for men who can hold rifles. The main RA force concentrations are a long way away, and otherwise engaged. In the Sun Tzu spirit, it seems like a great place to attack in that it truly taxes the enemy's ability to respond, and yet he must. 2. So the battered RA forces fighting in Mariupol will need to disengage and turn about, like Caesar at Alesia, to defend their LOCs. In effect, that suspends the siege. 3. 'Lifting the siege' is a powerful epic tale that commands the attention of both the world and Russia. Consider Leningrad. That fact can't be hidden, can't be respun. The whole 'denazification' meme unravels. ..... Stories! I can't believe I'm quoting Daily Kos, but I guess wartime makes for strange bedfellows: https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/19/2092926/-Why-Does-This-War-Get-Sympathy-While-Other-Conflicts-Do-Not Why are people more fired up about Ukraine than, say, Syria? It’s because, well, Syria is a civil war, and civil wars can often get fuzzy, especially if people aren’t familiar with the country.....There’s no simple good guy and bad guy. It’s not a simple story to tell. [several paragraphs on why human beings respond to stories, not 'facts'] 1. Putin’s mistake was screwing up an existing, fuzzy plot. The status of Crimea, while a land grab, had some uncertainty..... [but] the obvious attempt not to merely secure their puppet states in the Donbass but to take over the whole country, that simplified the story. 2. It wasn’t a civil war. It wasn’t a conflict over disputed territory. It was a bully attacking someone smaller. It became the story of the evil empire.... And out of that came the outnumbered few willing to stand and say no, the underdogs who, despite all the odds apparently against them, who were holding out. The men and women taking up arms to defend their freedom. That is an epic story. But then came the atrocities, the murders, the outright calls for genocide. This wasn’t just the story of the underdog anymore, this was the story of good versus evil. I guess you get the drift. And the Story matters in Russia too. Don't get too spun up in that whole 'soulless orcs' meme. No, they're people, even though many are acting abominably, and most are gloomily going along because it's too inconvenient to disbelieve the Story their leaders are telling. So in this case, the new Story -- total and irremediable defeat of the entire 'Denazification' Project -- needs to be indisputable enough to break through the layers of spin, denial and 'you'll be sorry, Russian bear ees only just getting started' chest beating. Breaking in and relieving the Mariupol siege, against all hope -- even if it isn't an actual 'lifting' of the siege for some time yet -- tells that story. I would say, even better than the progressive and ongoing bleed out of the current Grand Offensive. The world is starting to get jaded at more pictures of burning tanks. And the Story you DON'T want deluded Russians to start grasping at is that Our Boys were defeated (heroically) only because they were betrayed! stabbed in the back! by corrupt boyars (cryptonazis and probably, ahem, 'Khazars') who filched the fuel or whatever. No, Good Tsar Vlad needs to own this defeat, good and hard. Tsushima hard. **** Taking it back to military ways-and-means, such a bold stroke may be worth tasking a brigade or two, with some of the armour Ukraine has been husbanding. I think the UA 53rd has been manning that front for a long time, and knows the ground very very well. Let's say this UA incursion can essentially destroy, or rout, the 2 'Guards' regiments on the front and retake Volnovakha, with leg infantry moving well beyond, perhaps to the Mariupol outskirts.... Counterattacking would require the full efforts of the RA Mariupol ground forces -- badly depleted and not really 'geared' by now to resume open country warfare -- plus hasty diversion of RA units already manning frontage to the west. There's nothing else handy, unless they can airlift a VDV unit in or sumfink.... which taps whatever strategic reserves they have left. Or else beg Kadyrov and his pudgy son to leave the halal buffet and actually do some fighting for a change. ....Plus diversion of overstrained RA air power from their aforementioned Not-So-Grand Offensive. They'd need to either redeploy A/C to airbases in Crimea/Rostov area, or else skirt a long and increasingly deadly Ukrainian front / air defence zone.

1. Entirely biased source, but also entirely believable.... 2. Also, this Chinese analyst does a rough calc of RU modern tank losses (using Oryx as of early April): 3. I think this has been posted before (hundreds of pages back) but it's a good interactive map tool, mapping RA formation positions to regiment level. Current to 18 April.... https://www.uawardata.com/

If only the Mariupol defenders weren't at risk of being wiped out.... But as I read the other thread and studied this map https://militaryland.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/day_56_Pryazovia-Frontline.png 1. it appears that the Russian attacks along the entire 'land bridge' front east of Kherson, including Zaporozhe area are more or less ineffectual (and yes, the bar is not high). Indicating that the troops are second rate. 2. While down in Azovstalingrad they are not likely pushing very hard, given ambushes, sniping, booby traps, etc. from elite troops with nothing to lose. So they are simply trying to bomb them out or use 125mm tank rounds, and that isn't enough, as all of us who have played CM street fights know well. Some units including Spetsnaz have refused to play, so they are way short assault infantry. 3. Soooo, I am wondering whether once the RA has fully committed to its attacks on Slovyansk, the UA hits -- what is it, 150 MRD? BLAM!!!! right in the teeth, with special attention to killing its artillery. Collapse of that formation (1 of its regiments is engaged in Mariupol) could divide the Russian armies in two and open the roads to Melitopol and Mariupol. Saving the 'Azov SS' would be pretty hard for Putin to explain away to the warmongering babushkas.... 4. I mean, that's only if the UA isn't going with the @The_Capt's plan of cutting off the Operation MARS 'spearheads' as they wallow in front of Slovyansk. As Napoleon said, destroy the enemy army first and the rest takes care of itself.... /Armchair generaling

State of play, good maps. https://militaryland.net/ukraine/invasion-day-56-summary/ https://militaryland.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/day_56_Siverskyi-Donets.png