TheVulture

Coming up next in "How hot is Ukraine gonna get?": How cold is Ukraine gonna get?

Just when I thought that my opinion of that jizzmuffin Elon Musk couldn't get any lower...

Video of Borova apparently being back in Ukrainian hands, which I believe was the last major settlement / crossing point on the Oskil that was still contested. https://t.me/hueviykharkov/82348 I'm guessing that this means that the Russians have more of less given up on trying to hold the ground between the Oskil and Zherebets rivers.

Yeah, that's my worry too. In terms of being a coherent military force, the Russians in the Kherson direction seem to have generally shown the most competence. They're not going to be a push over.

Ukraine military arriving in Kivsharivka, just SE of Kupiansk .

Looking at the map, I wonder if any Russian forces in the Velyka Oleksandrivka direction are wondering if they are about to get the Izium / Lyman salient treatment.

We've not seen a lot of footage of mechanised forces (better opsec amongst other things I guess), but that looks like they are staging a push with some heavy forces there. Good luck everyone. EDIT: And then I saw MonkeyKing's post about a Ukraine mechanised attack north of Kherson. I think the Ukraine general staff are going to be the definitive source of information on operational art on a 21st century battlefield, and how to make it work in practice.

I like the completely irrelevant inclusion of the sunken Moskva just to remind everyone about it

Of course not. Putin's only strategy for dealing with confrontation is to keep doubling down and keep escalating until the other side is too cautious to keep matching him.

Russia announces that the SMO will continue until they control all of Donetsk oblast (I assume they mean Russia rather than Ukraine, but all bets are off with these clowns). Does that mean they are tacitly giving up on Luhansk?

Anyone know what's going on in Kursk? https://t.me/gubernator_46/1653

The other 6.89% voted for the only other option on the ballot: "Zaporizhia has never stopped being part of the Soviet Union, all glory to comrade Stalin, and any washing machines that may have been in my house were really the property of the Russian government".

Getting on to more abstract military theory, this seems like one of those situations where it always seemed to me that maeouverists and attritionists were in violent agreement (i.e. arguing with each other but saying the same thing, because they can't get past their straw man of the others position). The maneouverists would point to the wisdom of not assaulting Lyman head on and trying to force the battle there, but rather attack weaker points, encircle Lyman and render the Russians there irrelevant, meaning that they can be captured or mopped up for virtually no cost later on. The attritionists would say that this is attrition warfare, encircling the enemy in order to destroy them, rather than chasing off after some pie in the sky maneouverist goal of targeting the mythical 'center of gravity' that would destroy the Russian's will to fight. So they both end up advocating the same thing (because it is pretty obviously the most sane course of action) while misrepresenting what the other school of though would do. Same applies to Kherson - I'm sure Ukraine would rather avoid street by street fighting in Kherson if at all possible, and simply cut off any Russian forces that stay there, and then wait them out. Unless there is a pressing reason to do otherwise.

From the various different sources all appearing to broadly give the same picture, it's starting to look a lot like Ukraine have thoroughly broken the Russian defense line that ran from Oskil through Lyman and towards Severodonetsk; created gaps in multiple places and are more or less roaming in the Russian operational rear, at least as far as Lyman is concerned. Are we on the verge of a local Russian collapse back to the Zherebets river or further now, or is that getting too far ahead of reality. Although with the push north from Bilohorivka already being on the other side of the Zherebets, maybe Russia will have trouble holding muchwest of Krasna river and be pushed back to e.g. Kremina and Svatove in short order.

I'm guessing that's a good autocorrect fail for "shut down"

Hard to see how Russia gets anything from this though, and they'd have easier ways to shut down the pipelines by ... er ... shutting them down. Istead the cynic in me notes that shutting down the Nordstream pipelines is something the US has long wanted, and the outcomes of this are all likely to be ones that the US desires.

At risk of derailing this discussion with some actual battlefield events, 92md Mechanized brigade units apparently destroyed a Russian artillery position at Tabaivka, some 20km SE of Kupiansk. No indication of from what range, but maybe gives some indication of how far they've pushed from the Oskil river from that bridgehead.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63021117 Dmitry Bulgakov: Putin fires deputy defence chief amid supply failures Sorry for the text size - can't edit it on mobile.

Can't imagine why...

Selection of snippets from central asia about the US trying to outmaneouver Russia politically:

A few reports from both sides that Ukraine has control of Bilohorivka:

Pro-Russian officials in Donetsk are claiming to have repelled a Ukrainian attack on Kremina: https://t.me/bbbreaking/135627 Looking at the map, to get there UKR would have to go through, or around, Lyman and Zarichne, so I have my doubts that this was actually an attack. So hyping up a brief contact with a recon or special forces patrol?

Incursion? What incursion? I can't see anything.

Just none of them for very long.

The Zherebets (?) river is about 20 km east of the Oskil, and roughly parallel to it - no idea how much of an obstacle it represents though. It runs down to the lake north of Zarichne.