LongLeftFlank

Strelkov's got some company in the openly pessimistic Russki pundit category.... "The West has the most excellent intelligence system." Thanks, Bill and Ted, but that's the same Most Excellent system that heloed off the rooftops in Kabul in a panic because none of its 'specialists' could be arsed to learn Pashto/Farsi and learn what was really going on in the ANA. [Or had the ears to hear those who actually did know....] Not about to bet the future of human civ on our MBA Chekists either.... Oh, and even if USN can 'listen to' and neutralise all the Russian boomers, there's the small matter of 'securing' the ICBM silos. Paging @General Jack Ripper! Toe to toe with the Rooskies in nuclear combat!

Yes, and a tragically life altering event for the inhabitants. But on the positive side, there's a huge opportunity to rebuild and renew this (historically underdeveloped) area of rural Ukraine postwar. Some of these villages were legacy of the Sovkhozes, and questionable as sustainable economic concerns; there as elsewhere, many young people want to get off the farms. So the economy there -- and here I include a fully reclaimed Donbass, with frontiers back at the Don -- was overdue for a reinvention anyway, with private capital and better governance (fewer corrupt officials taking rakes). ...One might reorganize/retrain some of these same TA combat units as engineering and construction companies postwar, bringing their families to resettle these areas (keeping his & her NLAWs in the attic, Swiss army style lol). These cheery resourceful Ukrainian Vikings seem like they would go toe to toe with the Aussies or any 'construction/roughneck culture' in the world. ...And with less corruption (simply not tolerated by the vets with guns) plus line of sight to EU integration, Ukraine could become entirely cost competitive with Southeast Asia (and Turkey) as a manufacturing destination. (Yes, there are lots of things that could go wrong too, but to this grizzled infra specialist, the basic thesis is sound)

Dunno, interesting question. Feel free to dig up and post a map.... HINT: One good sifting method I've found is to search "Twitter + name of nearby village" then look at images to find (recent) maps.

1. Hitler was himself a victim of a gas attack, so unlike his other delusions he didn't have so many regarding their effects and limitations. 2. Gas (delivered by shells) is generally understood to restrict battlefield mobility; i.e. slow down attacks. It took Hitler until 1944 to really internalize Germany was on the defense and wasn't about to resume the offensive, which might have made gas weapons more tempting for him. 3. By that time, the Allied bombing of the Reich was going on in earnest. The Allies had made it clear prewar that once the Germans began using gas, dropping it on war factories and their adjoining cities was fair game. So that wasn't going to trade off for him, even with V-bombs.

Plenty of precedent for that, both recent and deeper in Soviet/Czarist history....

They've committed 106th VDV to an open country armoured offensive, which seems like a bizarre use of airborne infantry, even mounted. Throwing in the reserves?* Also, curious whether they're forming their own BTGs, or they're attaching companies of paratroopers to try to stiffen/screen the BTGs that are based on mech formations? (Basically, giving them the cross country leg infantry they should have had all along). In such dire straits, that's what I would do as the RA commander, a la Kampfgruppe Peiper (although that didn't solve things for him either). ... Of course then I could readily see the paras telling the BTG tank officers, or Gerasimov himself, to 'eff your mother' when ordered to close assault villages, etc. * EDIT: Of course, the VDV could also be tasked with securing the Oleksandrivka/Svyiatohirsk massif, which overlooks the northwest approaches to Lyman and could also offer a river crossing and a 'covered' approach to the northern environs of Sloviansk city. Definitely a job for crack infantry, but it'll basically expend the regiment....

Fair enough, Cap'n! I just blew a gasket when everything on here for pages on end seemed to be going onto a dumbell between Putin's favourite colour (macro) and which 'grave for seven brothers sux worse' (micro). Oh, and never forget: Russians = orcs. I'll confess to being overly fond of maps (at an echelon+ down from the Big Maps with the Big Arrows). But after being drawn into closer scrutiny of the meandering (and boggy as hell) topography of the Seversky Donets, I stumbled across those photos of Svyatohirsk and the massif behind it. And the caves. And then I had a Holy (Gregorian) Sh*te moment... terrain-wise, for the Russians, up to now this has been the EASY bit!!!!! EDIT: Oh, and here's another map. All those river valleys cut up the steppe, quite significantly in spots (in other words, besides obstacles there's elevation, and elevation means overwatch, as we CMers have all learnt the hard way).

Yet more timely geolocated videos from 'Dan' regarding the fluid combat zone SW of Izium. 2 weeks per village. Yeah, Rokossovski is proud of you, boychiks....

1. In contrast to the Sloviansk 'shallow pincer' operation, which seems to have reduced the 57 Bde. salient east of Izium but hasn't pocketed anything, it's much more of an open country fight here southwest of Izyum. But it's not at all clear the Russian armour is landing a glove on the UA. While Ivan still hasn't solved for this.... 2. This was the 'wider' pincer axis @Combatintman and @The_Capt pinned out 10 days back (AA1). But without a follow on echelon (and a corresponding drive from the south), it looks like just another road to nowhere.

Yeah, that was my thought; the moment you get in artillery range, you unload and laager the Purple Heart boxes as far away as possible from anything you actually care about. Put up radio masts and camo. Let the Russians waste ammo shelling the crap out of your dummy 'HQs' and post videos, then roll your eyes going 'oh, ya got me'. ...As a UA squaddie I'd personally take my chances in a pair of Hilux 4x4s with good tires, thanks very much. P.S. It's mid-afternoon here in the P.I. -- exactly opposite US EST. You're quite the nightowl these days, Steve.

Yeah, I know some Bulgarians and they admit to a reflexive historical fondness for Russia, which helped them eject the Ottoman Turks in 1871. They resisted German pressure to declare war on Russia in WW2, although they are also not fondly remembered by Greeks or Serbs. That's in spite of decades of Warsaw Pact rule, and in spite of the fact that they got 'off the fence' once they joined NATO (although that hasn't stopped the Turks from going offside either). ... Interestingly, as much of the total Bulgar/Pecheneg gene pool may live in Russia and Ukraine today as in Bulgaria, although the former have lost their language (Stalin deported those who hadn't) and intermarried. That's how it went with the various steppe conquerors, who each made the mistake of settling in and then got rolled over in turn by the next horde. I believe it's much the same with the Finno-Ugaritic peoples. As much 'Finnish blood' lives outside Finland/Estonia as inside.

I was thinking even more simply, bracket that effing road from end to end with 152mm.

Shouldn't all you guys be over on an "Eastern Front" / A3R gaming channel or something? You are all SOOOO macro. China real estate, FFS??? This thread is a bloody bag of cats. ....Am I the only guy here still studying this thing at CM scale, where this war is actually being decided? The realtime analysis is out there, go find it. I have a day job I'm neglecting. [/peptalk]

I expect you know this @Haiduk, but for the benefit of ignorant foreigners, this is what shields Sloviansk and Lyman on the north, and what 57th Bde is falling back on: Svyatohirsk! (the second tweet, not the first -- they only seem to post in pairs). Again, this is *not* windblown, featureless steppeland. ...Oh look! A caves monastery. You know how Russians just love to close assault caves. EDIT: A map from a few days back (Lyman-Zarichne-Svyatohirsk). Interesting feed, nice cartography. And if that 'red line' frontage (3 days old, RU sources so... salt) is accurate, 57 Bde. will need to evacuate its salient pronto because the road to Lyman is cut, or nearly.

This seems like excellent news, since the UA has time to pin out a nice deep killing zone in that open country in front of Kryva Luka. ...But let's make no mistake, the 79th lads in Yampil are buying that time with their blood. I'll defer to those who do this for a living, but 1. my CM sense tells me the Russians are hemmed in by the Dibrova forest (there's a golf course lol!) on their right and the river (boggy ground) on their left. There's really just that *one road.* Nice bottleneck, with another fortified village (Kryva Luka) to fight through at the end of it. Write off 1-1/2 more BTGs to get that done? 2. And then Ivan needs to cross the river.... on their current pattern, it could take them a week to even attempt it? A quick look at the ground [loc. unconfirmed]. Note there are some elevation changes here (Seviersky Donets river valley?), in case anyone had mental pictures of featureless undulating steppelands....

Reposting Strelkov's 23 Apr, because we need to keep looking through the enemy's eyes. And yeah, I still don't love @kraze's Orc theory, but if those iron shoes fit... Uglúk u bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai!

Fierce battles around Dovhenke, key to the Izyum-Sloviansk road, much as @Combatintman predicted. "Dan" continues to piece together outstanding chronos of various key actions...

Yes, good synthesis here. 1. I suspect that in spite of the hyperventilating babushka mob, Putin has now internalised that Ukraine does Not Want To Be Ruled From Moscow, and that pursuing that project is not worth the candle. He'll have his hands full keeping Belarus in his orbit as it is. 2. Therefore, Putin and Stavka want to get out of this war asap while they still hold parts of Ukraine, so they can declare 'victory' and then address their many defects, while accepting Russia's semi-isolation as a Chinese resource warehouse. 3. To do that, the RA must secure a defensible set of cease fire lines that the Ukrainians would find it costly to retake. The lines you describe could well be part of that boundary. Yes, they'd love to take more, but I think they will settle for what they can keep. And forcing UA 57th Bde. to vacate that bulge east of Izyum would be extremely helpful along those lines.

I'd strongly doubt that; videos, or counts thereof, aren't the tiniest bit 'quantitative' or indicative as to 'who's winning' or 'who's bleeding'. But the Russians may be getting better at killing Ukrainian soldiers, yes, per my prior....

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....